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Why Do They Put Lead Paint in Toys?It's bright, cheap, and lasts forever.

By Christopher Beam
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007, at 6:24 PM ET

Toy manufacturer Mattel recalled nearly 19 million Chinese-made toys Tuesday, including 436,000 toy cars containing lead paint. That was only two weeks after yanking nearly a million of its Fisher-Price toys for preschoolers because of lead content. Why would a toymaker ever use lead paint?

Because it's bright, durable, flexible, fast-drying, and cheap. Paint manufacturers mix in different lead compounds depending on the color of the paint. Lead chromates, for example, can enhance a yellow or orange hue. Municipal workers often use lead paint because it resists the color-dimming effects of ultraviolet light: The double yellow line in the middle of the road? That's loaded with lead. Paint manufacturers also add lead and other heavy metals to make paint stick better instead of flaking off. Price is also a factor: China mass-produces the stuff, and coloring agents like lead chromate are generally cheaper than organic pigments. (That said, added lead used to be a luxury. A house painter in the early 20th century would show up to a job with two buckets—one for the paint substrate, one for the lead powder. The more lead he added, the better the paint, the higher the price.)

Lead paint has other qualities that make it attractive to manufacturers. For one thing, it resists mildew, making it perfect for wood furniture and other surfaces likely to get wet. It's also anti-corrosive: Ship makers have historically applied a coating of lead paint, often containing the red mineral litharge, to the bottom of metal ships' hulls. (The Romans used lead paint, too—that's why the paint on some of their ruins is so well-preserved.)

But for all its utility, lead is dangerous even in small quantities. In 1978, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission made it illegal to use any paint containing more than 0.06 percent lead for residential structures, hospitals, and children's products. But it's still widely used on bridges, tanks, towers, heavy equipment, parking lots, road signs, and other large-scale projects. There's still lead in most consumer paints, too—just much, much less. Many paint manufacturers now use safer alternatives like zinc, although it doesn't quite match lead's luster or strength.*

People have known about lead's harmful effects for centuries. Benjamin Franklin once wrote a letter about the "bad Effects of Lead taken inwardly," and some 19th-century paint companies ran newspaper ads bragging about their lead-free paint. President George H.W. Bush's dog, Millie, attracted national attention to the dangers of lead poisoning in 1992, when she got sick from breathing lead dust during White House renovations. In 2006, the state of Rhode Island won a lawsuit against three major paint companies, which were ordered to clean up 300,000 contaminated homes.

Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.

Explainer thanks Richard Baker of Baker Environmental Consulting and Angelo Caparelli of Adviron.

Correction, Aug. 16, 2007: This article originally stated that bromide is a metal used in paint. It is actually an ion of bromine, which is a halogen, not a metal. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

Correction, Aug. 24, 2007: The original version of this article included a photograph of Batman toys manufactured by Mattel. The company did recall some Batman toys, but not because they contained lead paint.

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Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter.
Photograph of Batman toys by Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images.
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Remarks from the Fray:

The article is inaccurately focused on why we should avoid lead paint. But look at the benefits! flexibility, high color, long lasting! What we should do is move the evolution process along by incorporating more lead paint into the world, thereby killing off those who cannot resist the paint until we have a race of people who are immune to lead. Why stop something that has worked for millions of years?

--Boston_1140

(To reply, click here.)

It's surprising that US manufacturers aren't getting more attention for tainted dog food, hygiene products and toys. Everyone knows that some suppliers will take shortcuts, and that suppliers from China, Russia, Eastern Europe and other places will take more shortcuts than most. So why isn't the press burning US manufacturers who failed to test products that they knew could have problems?

Some have called for the Feds to be responsible for testing all imports. First, that's impossible for the Feds to do (they can't even be sure that there aren't dirty bombs in off-loaded shipping containers). Second, every citizen would have to pay for the testing (through taxes). Much better to hold vendors responsible for testing what they sell, and possibly for carrying appropriate levels of liability coverage for their businesses.

--pcorning

(To reply, click here.)

Yes, China needs to clean up its act on environmental issues. But before everything coming out of China is labeled 'toxic,' let's see who really dropped the ball on toy-maker accountability.

Mattel has already pointed to 'product design' as responsible for its recall of Chinese-made children's toys with magnets and other parts that could break off. Flaws in product design? This is an engineering and design problem that did not originate in manufacturing.

Second, testing for lead in a product is relatively easy. Soak it in water and then measure the amount, if any, of lead that is leeched from the product. Why didn't Mattel test its own products? Or if it did test prototypes, why would Mattel and others not randomly test finished products from the shelf as part of its quality control program?

Third, the issue regarding lead in children's jewelry is several years old. The media was late to it. The Center for Environmental Health sued toy manufacturers in 2003 after finding some level of lead in toy jewelry. That means the manufacturers were not surprised when - suddenly! - someone ratted on the Chinese! The manufacturer already knew about the lead.

--Squeek

(To reply, click here.)

(8/19)

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