During the past few weeks, there has been an outpouring of blogs, tweets and articles regarding Cadmium in children’s jewelry, bracelet charms, toys, etc. Cadmium is a soft, whitish metal that occurs naturally in soil. It is particularly known and used on roughly 50% of rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries. It is however, also used in pigments, electroplating and some plastics.
While it is more likely to be found in batteries and metal products like jewelry, attention must be paid to the contents it could have on paints and even on plastic materials. Most people get a microscopic does of Cadmium by breathing and eating. Certain plants, like tobacco, ingest cadmium through their roots hence people will absorb it during digestion or inhalation. The nasty sides of direct contact with Cadmium include, but are not limited to, cancer, leaking of protein in the kidneys and progressive weakness of bones.
Cadmium is more dangerous for children due to their growing bodies are more susceptible to absorbing substances. To date, there has been one child’s death attributed to this heavy metal, it was in Toronto back in 1994. Cadmium is a know carcinogen, that just like lead, can hinder brain development in the very young. Consistent levels of exposure (through biting, sucking, etc) can result in high ingestion levels of these heavy metals.
The AP study that targeted children jewelry, showed some of the items tested with contents of 10% of cadmium or more. These are extremely high contents of this heavy metal. Currently, there are no required cadmium standards for children in jewelry.
However, safety testing for kids meal toys does test not only for lead and CADMIUM, but also against many other heavy metals that could be soluble migrated elements (ASTM F963-08). The test is performed to confirm contents of Antimony, Arsenic, Barium, Cadmium, Chromium, Lead, Mercury and Selenium. Further, there IS a LIMIT in the content of Cadmium and that is measured in milligrams per kilogram (parts per million). The limit established is 75 parts per million (0.00075%). While this is the limit, most of the kids meal toys produced for large corporations in the US do not even reach 10% of the limit (6 parts per million = 0.00006%).
While I am not condoning in ANY shape of form, the content of cadmium in items that target kids or adults for that matter, it is important to understand that certain industries do take into consideration safety and consider it as a priority. Hopefully this will help educate some people and will tame some misconceptions about the industry and safety.
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