Vintage dining table w/ faux-wood surface: tested positive for Lead, Cadmium, Mercury & Antimony! Do you have a table like this?

Introduction (for those new to this website):

Tamara Rubin is an independent advocate for consumer goods safety. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children. She began testing consumer goods for toxicants in 2009 and was the parent-advocate responsible for finding Lead in the popular fidget spinner toys in 2017. Tamara uses XRF testing (a scientific method used by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for the presence of toxicants (toxic heavy metals), including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Antimony and Arsenic.

XRF reading for plastic (faux-wood) surface veneer of what is otherwise a solid wood vintage table:
60-second test

• Lead (Pb): 1,253 +/- 40 ppm
• Cadmium (Cd): 284 +/- 10 pp
• Mercury (Hg): 190 +/- 22 ppm
• Chromium (Cr): 918 +/- 185 ppm
• Antimony (Sb): 24 +/- 10 ppm
• Silver (Ag): 20 +/- 3 ppm
• Palladium (Pd): 20 +/- 3 ppm
• Platinum (Pt): 62 +/- 30 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 185 +/- 21 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 8,481 +/- 310 ppm
• Indium (In): 44 +/- 6 ppm
• Vanadium (V): 676 +/- 185 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 5,467 +/- 478 ppm

What’s the concern here?

With a table like this, I highly recommend using a table cloth, placemats and dishes when eating meals (as one might normally use!) My primary concern would be if a young child were using this table for meals and if they had a habit of eating directly off of the table’s surface (as young children often tend to do — this is especially likely with the new/modern high chairs that clip on to the edge of the table, using the table surface instead of a separate tray!)

What should I do if I have a table like this?

If you do have young children and own a vintage table like this one, I encourage you to find a modern alternative. Ikea has plain (unfinished) solid wood tables available in the $200-$300 range. I would consider safely disposing of a table like this one (as opposed to donating the table or gifting it to someone). I am truly concerned about the mercury levels in the surface coating (in addition to the Lead readings), and I don’t fully know the implications of this finding – but I expect it’s not a good thing (and is potentially immediately harmful to the user.) I think, as an advocate (when funds permit), I would love to send a piece of the plastic surface veneer of a table like this to a lab for further testing — to see if they also find similar levels of Mercury, Cadmium, Antimony and Lead with digestive testing in a laboratory setting. (Here’s a post I wrote about disposal of Leaded items.)

What else can I do?
(To help make sure families are not potentially impacted in the future.)

Additionally I would use a permanent marker (like a wide flat-tip black sharpie) and write in BIG BOLD LETTERS on the underside of the table that it is toxic and has these dangerous heavy metals in the food surface… that way if it does somehow wind up getting passed down to another family, they at least will have some knowledge of the concern.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions; I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment.Thank you for reading and for sharing my posts.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama