Strafford Vermont Organic Creamery glass milk bottle by StanPac: Painted with red Lead paint (18,200 ppm Lead, 90 is unsafe)

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For those new to this website:

Tamara Rubin is a multiple-federal-award-winning independent advocate for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety, and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children (two of her sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005). Since 2009, Tamara has been using XRF technology (a scientific method used by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for toxicants (specifically heavy metals — including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Antimony, and Arsenic). All test results reported on this website are science-based, accurate, and replicable. Items are tested multiple times to confirm the test results for each component tested. Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February of 2023 (March 2023 print edition).

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Lead paint on modern reusable milk bottles is a common problem.

I have several other articles about this subject and I encourage you to read those (as they each have more details on the subject) for some background on the issue. Start by clicking on this link for additional background information.

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Related pieces for those interested in more information:

• Why is this a problem? (The paint is “only” on the outside!)
• Glass milk bottles from California (Lead-free).
• Glass milk bottles from Oregon (painted with Lead paint).
• All the glass milk bottles we have tested.
• An article discussing the concern for Cadmium in consumer goods (and the levels of Cadmium that are concerning per various regulations).
• The issue is by no means limited to glass milk bottles — click here to read about glass baby bottles that I have recently found to test positive for Lead in the painted markings.

Test results reported here on LeadSafeMama.com are accurate, replicable, and science-based. One full set of XRF test results is always reported, however tests are done multiple times to confirm the results. Each set of test results reported is from a 60-second test unless otherwise noted.

When tested with an XRF instrument, the 64 Oz. StanPac reusable glass milk bottle from Strafford Organic Creamery (Strafford, Vermont) pictured here had the following readings:

On the red painted areas:

• Lead (Pb): 18,200 +/- 400 ppm
• Cadmium (Cd): 343 +/- 16 ppm
• Platinum (Pt): 272 +/- 85 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 54 +/- 18 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 14,200 +/- 500 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 3,218 +/- 386 ppm

On the clear glass areas:

• Cadmium (Cd): 8 +/- 4ppm
• Iron (Fe): 208 +/- 97 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 269 +/- 95 ppm

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This is NOT illegal.

Newly manufactured items intended for use by children today are considered illegal (and unsafe) if the paint or coating is 90 ppm Lead (or higher). Through some sort of crazy regulatory loophole, reusable glass milk bottles are not considered to be “items intended for use by children” and therefore are not regulated for total Lead content in the paint. While this is not illegal, it does not mean that it is okay, nor that we have to put up with it. Together (as consumers, especially as consumers of organic natural products) WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING about this. Let’s make a big noise. I am going to start by e-mailing this article to both StanPac and the Strafford Creamery. LEAD PAINT does not belong on our milk bottles, especially not the reusable bottles for our ORGANIC milk! We are trying to make safer, healthier choices for our families for Pete’s sake!

Readers, please help me contact the manufacturer

Please contact StanPac with an email (using their contact form) and ask them to STOP using Lead painted markings on their milk bottles. Thank you! Here is the link to their website: https://www.stanpacnet.com

What can these companies do about this problem?

Here’s a quick fix: A couple of years ago, when my friend Katie and I brought this issue to our local creamery near Portland, Oregon, they relatively immediately replaced ALL of their painted-logo bottles  with NO painted logos or markings. This left the only logo or marking on the sticker of the top of the cap. Last week, my good friend Carissa (also in Oregon) told me that she now knows when she goes to the store for milk she just needs to reach for the glass bottles with NO PAINTED MARKINGS.

A second option/ suggestion for these companies: Contact STRAUSS Creamery in California. Their reusable glass milk bottles are painted with LEAD-FREE painted markings. It is definitely possible to do this and they are an example. Ask them where they source their milk bottles and what choices they have made for the paint.

As always, thank you for reading and for sharing my articles. Please let me know if you have any questions. I will do my best to answer them personally, although it may take a long time (there were over 1,100,000 unique individual readers here on LeadSafeMama.com in 2020 — from over 200 countries! So, I cannot realistically answer each and every question — but I try! (To see all the countries with Lead Safe Mama readers in 2020, click here.)

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama