Lead in Toys, Despite Law

  • This toy was recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission because it violated federal lead paint standards. (Photo courtesy of the CPSC)

This year, there have been far fewer
toys recalled because of lead contamination
than in past years. But Rebecca Williams
reports, even with a tough new federal
law limiting lead, toys with illegal
levels of lead are still being found
on store shelves this shopping season:

Transcript

This year, there have been far fewer
toys recalled because of lead contamination
than in past years. But Rebecca Williams
reports, even with a tough new federal
law limiting lead, toys with illegal
levels of lead are still being found
on store shelves this shopping season:

So far this year, more than one million toys and kids’ products have been recalled because they contain high levels of lead. That’s actually a big drop from the past two years.

The toy industry, government officials, and even environmental groups all say this holiday season is safer.

“This is all due to parent and consumer demands and outrage over what’s happened in the past.”

That’s Mike Shriberg. He’s with the Ecology Center. Parents were outraged because lead exposure can cause the loss of IQ points, brain damage and even death. The American Academy of Pediatrics says there is no safe level of lead exposure.

But Shriberg says there’s a little good news here. Most toy companies and retailers have heard parents’ demands.

“Companies are trying to prove their safety to customers. And so, many of them have announced voluntary standards above federal laws. They’re more motivated to test and show that their products are safer and that’s where we’re seeing some of the improvement.”

Both Walmart and Toys R’ Us responded by email to questions from The Environment Report. Both retailers say they are thoroughly testing toys, and in some cases, hold their suppliers to stronger standards than the federal law.

But Mike Shriberg says the news is not all good.

“We’re still finding about 3% of toys we tested actually exceed recall levels which means they have lead above level deemed to be safe by federal laws.”

The government’s Consumer Product Safety Commission is in charge of making sure toys are safe. Three billion toys are sold in the US each year. The federal government does not test every kind of toy.

Nychelle Fleming is with the commission. She says the commission has a team of people testing toys, and inspectors do random toy checks at ports and retail stores. But she says the commission also relies on toy makers, advocacy groups and even parents to report problems with toys – including lead contamination.

“Unfortunately there’s no real way I can tell shoppers to know how to look out for or avoid. I think the best way for shoppers to know that is to really be in loop with the commission, to be a part of getting our recall announcements directly so you don’t have to question or wonder which product is affected.”

The Toy Industry Association says it’s not just the government’s job to make sure toys are safe. It says the industry has undertaken an unprecedented level of inspections and re-inspections to keep lead out of toys.

But some shoppers are not getting a clear message about lead in toys. Like these people we caught up with at a Target store.

“When you’ve got little kids that say I want this or I want that when they see it on TV or in the store it’s kind of hard to balance that against whether something has lead or not.”

“Usually they’ve been pulled haven’t they? I don’t know! Maybe they haven’t.”

“Well I just watch for it because I know you’re supposed to, but I don’t know the guidelines or the limits or anything like that, I really don’t.”

So clearly, not everybody knows what to look for when they’re shopping.

Mike Shriberg with the Ecology Center says it really shouldn’t be this hard.

“Part of our message as parents is, your lives are already complicated. The fact that our federal chemical regulatory system is completely failing means that really you almost have to be a chemist to do your shopping and that’s not… that shouldn’t be.”

Shriberg says, when it comes to lead, you can be a little more confident this holiday season. But he says there’s still no guarantee that all toys will be lead-free.

He says you should avoid children’s metal jewelry and toys from vending machines. He says simpler toys, like unpainted wood toys, tend to be the safest choices.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Air Pollution at Schools

  • In August, the EPA put air samplers outside of 63 schools in 22 states. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

The US Environmental Protection Agency
is wrapping up a 60-day initiative
looking at toxic air pollution around
schools. They’re looking to gauge the
health effects linked to pollution exposure.
Many of the schools were chosen based
on how close they were to heavy industry.
Gigi Douban reports:

Transcript

The US Environmental Protection Agency
is wrapping up a 60-day initiative
looking at toxic air pollution around
schools. They’re looking to gauge the
health effects linked to pollution exposure.
Many of the schools were chosen based
on how close they were to heavy industry.
Gigi Douban reports:

It’s pretty much a given: put a school near heavy industry and an interstate, and those
kids are going to be breathing polluted air. What the EPA didn’t know was just how
polluted it would be. So the agency in August put air samplers outside of 63 schools in
22 states. One of those schools is Lewis Elementary in Birmingham, Alabama.

(sound of calling out names for carpool)

As he does every day, Richard Gooden is waiting in the carpool line to pick up his
granddaughter, who attends pre-K at the school. Not far away, near the basketball
court, there’s an air pollution monitor. Gooden, for one, was glad it was there. Living
up the hill from the American Cast Iron Pipe Company, he’s seen thick layers of dust
settle on his windows.

“I got a little white house with vinyl siding, and you can’t tell there’s vinyl hardly
because of the dirt coming from that pipe shop.”

Gooden has lived in that house for 43 years. His granddaughter spends most days
there, and he worries about her health and his own.

“I had a triple heart bypass a while back. I’m just wondering is that air completely
clean to breathe.”

The EPA plans to have some answers. In Birmingham, the Jefferson County Health
Department is collecting the data on the EPA’s behalf. Corey Masuca is the county’s
senior air pollution control engineer. He says they’re screening for about 100 different
pollutants.

“We looked for them, then, we found them.”

So far, he says, only three of those – benzene, manganese and acrolein – were found
at high levels. Most concerning, acrolein levels were more than 100 times higher than
what the government considers safe. Where does it come from?

“Pretty much any type of combustion source – whether it’s combustion coal, or
fuels from a plant, or fuel from a car. It even emanates from cigarette smoke, so it’s
fairly ubiquitous.”

But ubiquitous doesn’t mean safe. In fact, excess exposure to manganese can cause
brain damage. Acrolein can damage the lungs, and benzene is a carcinogen.

Masuca says the findings aren’t a major cause for concern. But Janice Nolen,
Assistant Vice-President for Policy and Advocacy at the American Lung Association,
disagrees.

“The fact that it’s in lots of places doesn’t mean it is not a big problem. It means
that we have a lot of things that we need to clean up.”

And when it comes to schools, she says, industrial pollution isn’t the whole picture.
Diesel buses drive right up to the school doors every day. Inside schools, poor
ventilation and even things like some glues can lead to health problems.

Yet there are definite links between these air toxins and heavy industry. So Masuca, of
the Jefferson County Health Department, says just knowing what’s out there is a huge
first step. Next they’ll come up with ways to reduce exposure. Things like having kids
stay indoors during recess on days when pollution levels seem to be highest.

Janice Nolen of the American Lung Association hopes monitoring will lead to stricter
controls on nearby industry. And maybe spark even a little bit of self-regulation.

“Letting people know about what’s in the air often raises public awareness and
causes industry to rethink what they’re doing and come up with less toxic ways to
produce their products.”

She says this research can galvanize communities into action. Most of the parents I
spoke with at Lewis Elementary didn’t know a thing about the EPA’s monitoring
program. But perhaps once the EPA gathers long-term data on schools across the
country in the months to come, that will change.

For The Environment Report, I’m Gigi Douban.

Related Links

Shut Off That School Bus!

  • There are still a lot of states that don't have any restrictions on diesel idling. (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

Diesel exhaust has been linked
to a lot of health problems –
asthma, heart disease, and cancer.
That’s why so many states and cities
across the country have anti-idling
laws for diesels. Mark Brush reports
some bus companies are being caught
with their engines running:

Transcript

Diesel exhaust has been linked
to a lot of health problems –
asthma, heart disease, and cancer.
That’s why so many states and cities
across the country have anti-idling
laws for diesels. Mark Brush reports
some bus companies are being caught
with their engines running:

In Connecticut and Rhode Island , the Environmental Protection Agency caught a bus company called First Student breaking anti-idling laws. In some cases, they found bus drivers idling their engines for up to two and a half hours.

The government just reached a settlement with First Student. Tim Conway is an enforcement lawyer for the EPA.

“First Student really stepped up to the plate once we’d identified the violations. And they helped us look for solutions that would protect children’s health and protect the health of people around the diesel vehicle.”

First Student is now retraining their drivers and cleaning up their emissions. The company operates buses in 40 states.

There are still a lot of states that don’t have any restrictions on diesel idling. So, on any given school day, you can find long lines of buses polluting the air in front of schools, waiting for the kids to come out.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Is Your Playground Toxic?

  • Some parents and health professionals are standing by crumb rubber, because it does such a good job of preventing broken bones. (Photo by Ben Adler)

Playgrounds are supposed to be
safe places for kids to play.
But Tamara Keith
has the story of a leaked memo
from the Environmental Protection
Agency that indicates there might
be a problem with crumb rubber:

Transcript

Playgrounds are supposed to be
safe places for kids to play.
But Tamara Keith
has the story of a leaked memo
from the Environmental Protection
Agency that indicates there might
be a problem with crumb rubber:

(sound of kids playing)

Shawn Clancy’s two sons are having fun running around a community play set. And if they fall, he says there’s plenty of crumb rubber. It’s made from recycled tires and it should stop them from breaking any bones.

“I’ve seen kids fall from far distances. I’ve seen the give. I’ve seen them get right back up and kids are playing with it. It’s fun to dig in. They can kind of play with it. It’s about 8 inches thick, so there’s quite a bit of it.”

Clancy and his neighbors like the fact that it lasts a long time and that it keeps old tires out of landfills. And they’re not the only ones.

(outdoor sound)

I’m outside of the White House right now, just on the other side of the fence. And somewhere on those grounds, probably behind some tall shrubs, there is a play set. It’s a new play set that Sasha and Malia, the first family got. And underneath that play set is a pretty thick layer of rubber crumb to protect the girls if they fall.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that this exposure is good for kids. The only question is how bad could it be.

Jeff Ruch heads Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. His group got its hands on some documents where scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency question whether there’s stuff in the crumb rubber that could be toxic to kids.

“What’s known is very very little. They list, I think it’s 30 toxic chemicals in one of the memos. And so far work has only been done on two of them.”

An EPA spokesman says the agency is doing a preliminary study of 4 playgrounds, looking for lead and volatile organic compounds. The results aren’t in yet.

The Rubber Manufacturers Association says there are more than a hundred studies showing scrap tires are safe in playgrounds and that environmental groups are over hyping the concerns.

Richard Wiles isn’t buying it. He’s senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group. And he feels like he’s seen this movie before – with arsenic treated wooden playground equipment.

“It was a really bad idea to use arsenic in this way and for about 20 years this is what we did.”

And kids all across the country were playing on this contaminated wood. But the thing is, initially arsenic treated wood seemed like a great idea, because it prevented decay – and made play structures safe and strong for years.

Parents might be left with the feeling that you just can’t win. Wiles thinks there’s another lesson.

“The basic problem is, we tend to use these products before we evaluate the health and safety concerns. We tend to just throw it out there without thinking that oh this is a surface that is made out of something that was previously considered hazardous waste.”

With all the alarm about very real arsenic problems, and yet to be verified concerns with crumb rubber, Donna Thompson says it’s easy to forget that playgrounds today are safer than they’ve ever been. She’s executive direction of the National Program for Playground Safety. For now she’s standing by crumb rubber, because it does such a good job of preventing broken bones.

“I’m not going to worry about it yet until I hear what the results are because I think sometimes we make too big a deal out of something and then it’s just not the case.”

The EPA says it will have results in a few weeks.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

Related Links

Salmonella Vaccine Coming Soon?

  • While a salmonella vaccine is in the works, researchers don't think it's suited for countries like the United States (Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control)

Researchers are working on a new vaccine to prevent salmonella poisoning. But, Julie Grant reports, the researchers say it probably won’t help us when we’re faced with salmonella tainted tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts:

Transcript

Researchers are working on a new vaccine to prevent salmonella poisoning. But, Julie Grant reports, the researchers say it probably won’t help us when we’re faced with salmonella tainted tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts:

Salmonella poisoning affects about 20-million people worldwide each year and causes 200,000 deaths. A vaccine might sound like a good idea.

Arthur Thompson has been working on one at the Institute of Food Research in England. His group has found that salmonella relies on glucose for its survival. So they’re designing a vaccine to use that against the bacteria.

But Thompson thinks a salmonella vaccine should not be used to solve a problem that industrialized nations can already prevent.

“I don’t think it would be appropriate really, for something like this. I mean, I think in this case, it’s more a case of preventing the contamination in the first place, really.”

Thompson says the vaccine is better suited for people in developing nations where salmonella causes still causes typhoid fever.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

The Great Vaccination Debate

  • There are parts of the country where up to 20% of families are saying ‘no’ to vaccines. (Photo by Bill Branson, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

Babies and young children get a lot more vaccines today than they did ten years ago. To most parents, it’s a chance to protect their children from more diseases. But there are pockets of places where lots of people are opting out of vaccines. Julie Grant reports that it has the Centers for Disease Control concerned:

Transcript

Babies and young children get a lot more vaccines today than they did ten years ago. To most parents, it’s a chance to protect their children from more diseases. But there are pockets of places where lots of people are opting out of vaccines. Julie Grant reports that it has the Centers for Disease Control concerned:

Heather Waltz has a five month old daughter. Most Americans her age have already started a series of vaccinations – to prevent everything from Hepatitis B, to Diphtheria, to Polio.

But Waltz’s little girl isn’t going to get those shots. Her mom worries they could cause things like autism, juvenile diabetes and even cancer.

“I think the jury’s still out, as far as what the research says. But there is enough anecdotal sort of stuff to make me aware and decide that, really, right at this point, vaccinating wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

Waltz is among a small, but growing number of parents who are becoming skeptical of vaccines.

Lance Rodewald is director of immunization services at the Centers for Disease Control.

He says more than 90% of American children are vaccinated. But there are parts of the country where up to 20% of families are saying ‘no’ to vaccines.

“And that’s getting to a rate of lack of protection of children that really can be a fertile ground for the spreading of diseases like measles. And we actually saw that last year.”

In one case last year, Rodewald says a child who wasn’t vaccinated caught the measles in Switzerland and brought it back to Arizona.

“The parents didn’t realize that the child had measles – brought him to the pediatricians office where there were babies that were too young to be vaccinated that got measles. And then that particular outbreak went through four generations of spread, from child to child to child to child before it was able to be contained.”

Measles can cause more than just a nasty rash. In rare cases, it can lead to death. Measles still causes 200,000 deaths around the world. But it’s been almost eradicated in the U.S. because of vaccines.

Rodewald says many parents are concerned about vaccines today because of a ten-year old scientific article that linked the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella to autism. Rodewald says the science in that article proved to be wrong.

“The authors withdrew their names from the article. But this particular study set off a whole series of concerns about vaccines and autism that, to this day, is still talked about.”

Rodewald says many studies have been done and found no association, no cause and effect, between vaccines and autism.

It’s tough for parents to wade through all the information that’s out there these days. And there are so many vaccines to try to understand. Back in the mid-1990s, children were given 6 vaccines. Today, they’re supposed to get more than twice that many.

Mother Heather Waltz tries to keep up with it all and says she still plans to avoid vaccines.

Waltz: “For every bit of research and every article I find sort of helping me support my point, there’s a million other bits of research and articles saying that I’m a bad parent, or saying that I’m somehow damaging the health of the entire United States by not vaccinating my child. Just this idea that she could be a measles monster and just running around and infecting her classmates with measles or something like that, and that would be a terrible thing.”

Grant: “What do you think when you see that?”

Waltz: “It doesn’t make logical sense to me. Because to me, if you have 30 kids in a classroom, and my one isn’t vaccinated, wouldn’t my child be the one at risk? Not the public’s.”

But even if Waltz’s daughter doesn’t get vaccinated, she’ll probably be safe from these diseases. With so many other kids getting inoculations, most of the U.S. is not fertile ground for them to regain traction.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Doctors Release Statement on Urban Sprawl

  • The statement sites urban sprawl as one of the main causes of childhood obesity because often kids can’t walk to parks or schools (Photo courtesy of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

Turns out there’s more to childhood
obesity that junk food and bad genes.
A national group of doctors places
some of the blame on urban design.
Jennifer Guerra has more:

Transcript

Turns out there’s more to childhood
obesity that junk food and bad genes.
A national group of doctors places
some of the blame on urban design.
Jennifer Guerra has more:

The American Academy of Pediatrics puts out so-called ‘policy statements’ all the time. Usually they’re for other doctors to read.

But this time, the doctors group is taking aim at lawmakers.

The group issued a statement in Pediatrics Magazine that basically says urban sprawl is one of the main causes of childhood obesity because often kids can’t walk to parks or schools.

June Tester is the lead author. She says the statement was a little controversial within the group.

“A lot of time, physicians are too busy or feel uncomfortable about being in the role of an advocate. But it’s a shame, because when physicians are actually motivated enough to speak to legislators, it can actually make a big difference.”

Tester says the response from the urban planning community has been really positive. Now she hopes lawmakers keep the research in mind when it comes time to vote for legislation that will affect a community’s design.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

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Portable Classrooms Get a Makeover

  • When schools run out of room, they often have to put students in portable buildings (Source: Motown31 at Wikimedia Commons)

When schools get too crowded, they often resort to sticking students in modular classrooms – cheap trailers, essentially. But Sheryl Rich-Kern reports some innovative architects are saying that the energy savings and efficiency of modulars make them an ideal, and often, permanent solution:

Transcript

When schools get too crowded, they often resort to sticking students in modular classrooms – cheap trailers, essentially. But Sheryl Rich-Kern reports some innovative architects are saying that the energy savings and efficiency of modulars make them an ideal, and often, permanent solution:

I’ve actually taught a class in one of those temporary, portable classrooms. It was in the early morning at a community college.

Students would walk in droopy-eyed. My job was to keep them engaged and awake.

Not an easy task – the room was either too hot or too cold. And the ventilation system made weird noises.

But, some experts say portables don’t have to be that way. They can be the kind of room that educators actually prefer.

Michelle Gould is a teacher and parent at the Carroll School in Lincoln, Massachusetts. And she teaches in a new kind of portable classroom.

“The air is very clean in here. It smells like the outside. It doesn’t smell like air conditioning or heating. The lighting is very good for not working under natural light. It seems like you’re outside. And it makes a big difference tutoring kids.”

Tutor: “Did you write your last name, Will? No? Very good, nice spacing. Close your books and put your pencil down.”

(sound of kids playing outdoors)

The Carroll School’s main building is a brick mansion from the early 1900s.

It is stately, elegant. The portable next to it is not. It’s boxy, and has a flat, white roof. Kind of ugly.

But, when you walk in to the portable you feel a change. It’s comfortable!

Cliff Cort is president of Triumph Modular, the firm that leases the country’s first green portable classroom.

“This is a vestibule, we think is a necessary ingredient to almost all buildings, because it controls the weather from the outside to the inside.”

Vestibules aren’t typically found in modular classrooms. Neither is the paperless drywall that eliminates mold, or the sensors that “learn” the best way to control the heating.

“If the teacher tends to come in early on Mondays, the building will begin to learn her habits, and then turn on the heating or A-C just before she gets here. And if they start to take off half a day on Wednesdays, the building would start to learn that no one is here in the afternoons, and then they can shut down. So it helps manage the use of the HVAC system.”

Cort points to the domed skylights known as sun tunnels, which bring in daylight.

“But they don’t bring it in a way that’s too harsh. As you can see, this is screened a bit. So it’s diffused light.”

Triumph Modular is just one of the companies making these more environmentally friendly modular classrooms.

Tom Hardiman is director of the Modular Building Institute, a trade association for dealers and manufacturers of commercial modular buildings.

“Improved acoustics. Improved daylighting. There are countless studies out there that show that it does improve the learning environment.”

Hardiman says many of the old-style portable classrooms end up being used for 20 or 30 years. The problem is they weren’t meant to.

But higher-end portables, like the one in Lincoln, Massachusetts, are built to last.

And, because of the modular construction, they’re greener.

“We typically produce much less construction waste material than site-built construction. Because our factories buy in bulk, they can resuse smaller pieces of material. If you’ve been on a construction site, you’ve seen dumpster after dumpster of two-by-fours and drywall and siding sticking out of the dumpster. There’s just not that much waste with modular construction.”

Hardiman says that green portables are the wave of the future.

They’re not the cheapest solution. But Hardiman says they do provide the best learning spaces on campus.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sheryl Rich-Kern.

Related Links

EPA Rules on Pesticide Residue

  • One crop that Carbofuran was used on is potatoes (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)

The Environmental Protection Agency says no amount of the pesticide carbofuran is safe on food. Mark Brush has more on the new EPA rule:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency says no amount of the pesticide carbofuran is safe on food. Mark Brush has more on the new EPA rule:

The EPA has been phasing out this insecticide, but it’s still used on some crops like rice, corn, and potatoes.

When people are exposed to carbofuran, it can cause damage to the nervous system. And the EPA is particularly worried about kids exposure when eating food or when drinking water near treated farm fields.

Potato farmers say they use carbofuran to kill bugs that resist other pesticides.

John Keeling is the CEO of the National Potato Council. He says they were hoping the EPA would let them keep using it.

“We had tried to work with the agency to modify use patterns, or limit the use to particular areas, so that we could continue to use the product – but they obviously didn’t continue in that direction.”

FMC Corporation makes the chemical. Officials there issued a statement saying they’ll fight the EPA’s new rule.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Shops Happy With New Lead Rule

  • A lead detector finds over 5000 parts per million of lead in this toy. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

Kids consignment shops have been worried about a new law limiting lead and other chemicals in children’s products.
Julie Grant reports store owners are glad to finally have some answers from the federal government:

Transcript

Kids consignment shops have been worried about a new law limiting lead and other chemicals in children’s products.
Julie Grant reports store owners are glad to finally have some answers from the federal government:

Amanda Cingle in is manager at Once Upon a Child. It’s part of a franchise of 300 stores that sell used items for kids.

She says the owner was concerned the new law would mean they’d have to throw out their existing inventory – or spend many thousands of dollars having it all tested for chemicals.

But now the government’s Consumer Products Safety Commission says the law will only applies to new products, not those being re-sold.

“We’re so relieved. We don’t have to worry anymore. The owner’s worry was that she was going to have to close her doors and never reopen.”

Cingle says the store has an environmental mission – to reuse and recycle products – so she’s glad they don’t have to throw everything away.

But she’s also pleased that new products will be made with less harmful ingredients.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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