August 2, 2023 — Wednesday
July 2023 was the BEST JULY EVER for the reach and readership of Lead Safe Mama, LLC’s work! While we did not reach our sustainability readership goal of 600,000 unique page views for the month (the level of readership at which we project that the funds earned from our work will fully cover the cost of the work we do here), there are countless other highlights to share. Here are some, and you can scroll down for more stats charts and graphs if you are curious!
- The work of the Lead Safe Mama community was responsible for a Federal (CPSC) recall of 346,000 Lead-contaminated children’s cups!
- The above recall was covered by every major news outlet (and most minor publications) in the country!
- Our work was covered in an article about vintage decor on TheKitchn.com.
- We had a total of 387,350 unique page views here on the website in July 2023 — from readers all over the world. This represents a readership increase of 27.7% over last July (2022), which was the previous record holder for “Best July Ever.”
- We did TWO outreach events in July — one in Vienna, Austria and another in Sandy, Oregon (!).
- Our New York City Subway PSA Campaign continued in the subways well into the month of July.
- We passed 3,600,000 unique page views on the site for the year, making our monthly average page views to date more than 514,000, which is oh-so-close to our 600,000 sustainability goal!
- We had our 3-year XRF instrument inspection with the State of Oregon, passed with flying colors, and received our certificate of renewal.
- We renewed our XRF instrument operator’s license for the State of New York.
- We filmed videos of XRF testing we did in Italy, Austria, Germany, and the United States (we have not yet published all of those, so stand by!).
- We published our semi-annual report here on the website — with all sorts of interesting facts and figures!
- We communicated with one major legal agency about working together to get better regulations implemented for an entire industry (high-Lead-content Bentonite Clay-based personal care products that may be intentionally or accidentally ingested by consumers — including [but not limited to] Bentonite Clay based toothpastes).
Even though we did not meet our financial goals (wrapping up the month with an operating deficit of more than $5,000), we accomplished so much. It was an especially AMAZING month when you look at all of the highlights above. If you appreciate the work we do and are in a position to make a financial contribution in support of this work, we wouldn’t say “no!” Here’s a link with more info on how you can help in that way. (Thank you!!!)
Looking forward to August 2023 — Here are some “predictions” as we close out the second day of the month:
- With the phenomenal readership here on this website over the past two days, if things keep going at the current pace (nearly 20,000 page views today alone!) we may actually pass 550,000 unique page views for August 2023.
- If that happens, this will be the “Best August Ever” for reach and readership here on LeadSafeMama.com.
- We are also planning on submitting at least FIVE product violation reports (requesting/ demanding CPSC recalls of the following products):
- Pura Kiki insulated stainless steel baby bottles sold through 2019,
- Wee Sprout painted glass baby food jars sold through 2023,
- Zak insulated stainless steel children’s cups sold through 2023,
- Crocodile Creek insulated stainless steel water bottles sold through 2023, and
- the 20 oz Cupkin cups (sold through 2023) that were not part of the big recall noted above.
- If we have time there are also several other Lead painted glass baby bottles we are hoping to file reports on with the CPSC beginning this month.
- In the next week or so we will also pass 20,000,000 (twenty million!!!!) unique all-time page views here on the website. And this August (if these first two days of the month are any indicator) we will easily pass 4,000,000 unique page views for this year alone (for the first eight months of this year!).
As always, thank you so much for your continued support of this work. This is (as always) a team effort — and YOU are an integral part of that team.
Are the pura Kiki bottles sold recently (within the past year) okay? We’ve bought 3 since November Thanks for all of your hard work!
If we take the company at their word (which I have no reason to do actually) – yes – the new ones sold this year in 2023 should no longer have a high-Lead component.
T
I’ve searched the website and can’t find anything about the Zak insulated cups. What’s wrong with them?
Hi Tamara,
Regarding the Zak insulated stainless steel children’s cups sold through 2023 that you are planning on submitting a product violation report for, would it be possible for you to share which of the Zak insulated stainless steel cups tested positive for lead? We use various sizes of the Insulated Stainless Steel & Double Wall Tumblers and Stainless Steel Double Wall Vacuum Insulated & Single Wall Kids Water Bottles. Also, the only Zak products I could find on your site were the mugs, have you tested any other Zak products? If so, could you please provide a link to the respective information?
Thank you so very much for all of the valuable work that you do and all of the extremely important information that you provide! It is greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Liz
Yes – I will. This is a summary of work I will be doing this month. In general – please avoid any Zak brand products until further notice.
T
Thank you so much Tamara! I’ll take a look at your site to see what to get to replace our current cups.
Hi Tamara – a few other brands of stainless steel water bottles/tumblers we use are Ello and Bubba (both brands purchased from Target). Do you have any insight on toxins/potential toxins with those brands? Thank you!!