Introduction:
Tamara Rubin is an independent advocate for consumer goods safety, and 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. She uses XRF testing (a scientific method used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for metallic toxicants (including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Arsenic). To read more about the testing methodology employed for the test results reported on this blog, please click this link.
Full XRF test results for the West Elm dish pictured
(made in Indonesia)
120-second reading, Food Surface of Dish – reading #1
- Lead (Pb): 6 +/- 2 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 5 +/-1 ppm
- Mercury (Hg): non-detect
- Bromine (Br): non-detect
- Chromium (Cr): non-detect
- Iron (Fe): 523 +/- 30 ppm
- Indium (In): 3 +/- 2 ppm
- Tin (Sn): 8 +/- 2 ppm
- Platinum (Pt): 12 +/- 7 ppm
- Bismuth (Bi): 31 +/- 3 ppm
60-second reading, Food Surface of Dish – reading #2
- Lead (Pb): 7 +/- 3 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 8 +/- 2 ppm
- Mercury (Hg): non-detect
- Bromine (Br): non-detect
- Chromium (Cr): non-detect
- Iron (Fe): 550 +/- 45 ppm
- Indium (In): 7 +/- 3 ppm
- Tin (Sn): 6 +/- 3 ppm
- Bismuth (Bi): 33 +/- 4 ppm
30-second reading, Back Mark / Logo of Dish – reading #1
over hot cup symbol
- Lead (Pb): 2,819 +/- 48 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 33 +/-3 ppm
- Mercury (Hg): non-detect
- Bromine (Br): non-detect
- Chromium (Cr): 935 +/- 166
- Manganese (Mn): 1,640 +/- 128 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 1,850 +/- 93 ppm
- Cobalt (Co): 1,535 +/- 67 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 677 +/- 25 ppm
- Indium (In): 6 +/- 4 ppm
- Tin (Sn): 8 +/- 4 ppm
- Platinum (Pt): 43 +/- 23 ppm
60-second reading, Back Mark / Logo of Dish – reading #2
over microwave symbol
- Lead (Pb): 2,788 +/- 32 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 34 +/- 2 ppm
- Mercury (Hg): non-detect
- Bromine (Br): non-detect
- Chromium (Cr): 940 +/- 114
- Manganese (Mn): 1,711 +/- 89 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 1,895 +/- 64 ppm
- Cobalt (Co): 1,529 +/- 46 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 661 +/- 17 ppm
- Indium (In): 5 +/- 3 ppm
- Tin (Sn): 7 +/- 3 ppm
- Platinum (Pt): 69 +/- 16 ppm
Some additional reading that might be of interest:
- The post discussing the testing methodology used on this website
- Post discussing how to send in an item for testing
- Things that you can test at home.
- Things that might be better tested with an XRF instrument.
Thanks for reading. Thank you for sharing my posts. As always, please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment (which may not be right away – but I will try!)
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
Amazon links are affiliate links. If you purchase something after clicking on one of my links I may receive a percentage of what you spend – at no extra cost to you.
Hi, Tamara do you know when these items were purchased? I have similar WE plates from 2016 and I’m concerned about the logo. If I run my finger over the logo and it’s not raised would they still be a concern? Just thought I’d ask before replacing them. Thank you for all the tireless work you do to raise awareness and reduce lead exposure!