Another backpack at Target tested positive for high lead content.

This High School Musical backpack tested between 3000-4000 ppm lead.  It is added to our list of Unofficial Recalls.

The black part of the wheel on this tricycle by Parents tested at more than 1500 ppm lead.

Because of the high lead content, this tricycle, found at Target, is added to our list of Unofficial Recalls.

The mouth on this Go Diego Go Card Game backpack was several thousand parts per million lead.

This is another product added to our Unofficial Recalls due to high lead content.

While at Target tonight, I noticed a recall notice posted about Curious George plush dolls.

I picked one of the Curious George plush toys up and tested it in the store.  The yellow jacket instantly lit up with more than 10,000 parts per million lead.

This particular model was not included in the recall so I will add it to my Unofficial Recalls.  A yellow jacket with more than 10,000 ppm is ridiculous.

We purchased this Go Diego Go Backpack from Target in November.  When we tested it in the store, we found that virtually every component tested positive for lead.  Even the yellow canvas tested very high for lead content.  For this reason we are adding this to our Unofficial Recalls.

The vinyl material throughout has between 4,000 and 5,000 parts per million lead in it.  Different parts of the canvas material test between 1% and 2% lead (10,000 - 20,000 ppm).  This is far beyond the 600 ppm (.06%) allowable lead content.  Even the black plastic contains more than 1000 ppm lead.  We are requesting that the manufacturer, Global Design Concepts and Target stop selling this product immediately until it can be manufactured without lead.  Since the lead content is part of the material and not part of surface paint it may not technically fail federal safety standards but that certainly doesn’t mean that it should be allowed to remain on the shelves.

Test results are from a portable X-Ray Fluorescence device.

This piggy bank was brought into the store after Christmas to be lead tested as part of our free lead paint testing.  This pig not only tested positive for lead, it was extremely leaded.

It measured more than 1% lead when we tested the pig.  Then today I retested the pig and found that the yellow paint tested in excess of 22,000 ppm lead (2.2%).  Even the black stopper on the bottom was more than 1000 ppm lead.  I couldn’t find a single square inch that passed our lead test.  There is no labeling or other information to help find out where it came from so if you have a pig that looks like this one, don’t chew on it and wash your hands after touching it.  The only safe place for this toy is on top of my wall of shame in the land of misfit toys.  If you want a great piggy bank, try the decorate your own piggy bank that we sell in our store.

Through the course of our free lead testing, we love to see all the toys that have no measurable amounts of lead. But then there are the toys that just surprise us that have ridiculous amounts of lead in them but haven’t been recalled yet.  So this will be the first of our unofficial recalls where we will post toys that fail our tests.

Just today we tested a Radio Flyer Fold 2 Go Tricycle. 

The black wheels tested at several thousand parts per million, far above the safety standard of 600 enforced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.  We were shocked by the results.  While I don’t expect the wheels get chewed on much, it seems really bad for that much lead to be present in the wheels.

We also tested the numbers on a book about calling 9-1-1 in an emergency.

The numbers tested at 1500 ppm, also beyond the federal standards.

We will alert the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the manufacturers, and the retailers that sell these products.  We will also regularly add products that fail lead tests.  More importantly, we will begin a database of toys that successfully pass lead tests.  We hope this database will eventually list every safe toy that exists.  Until then, we will just continue to test every toy brought into our store.