Pollutants and heavy metals in children's toys

Children's toys as a supplement to children's magazines contain hazardous substances harmful to health

08/02/2013

Kids love the little, colorful toys that are in children's notebooks like „Princess lillifee", „Filly Extra "or „The princess and the unicorn "are to be found as an addition.An investigation on behalf of the parliamentary group of the Greens, however, found that six out of eight of these toys are heavily contaminated in part with pollutants such as cadmium, lead or plasticizers.

Health damage from lead, cadmium and plasticizers in children's toys
According to the laboratory investigation, four toys contained residues of cadmium, one of which was the glitter fan „Princess Lillifee "booklet, a baby-filly-mermaid-figure from the „Filly Extra "and a tomahawk from the July issue of „Cadmium is a heavy metal that is obtained as an unavoidable by-product of zinc, lead and copper extraction and is also contained in fertilizers and pesticides. As a trace element, cadmium can accumulate in the human body for years and cause chronic intoxication It can cause severe kidney damage and damage the bone by mobilizing calcium.

Lead was detected in some toys, such as cadmium in the Tomahawk (four milligrams of lead per kilogram) from the „Yakari "booklet. Significantly more lead was found in a police badge from the children's magazine „Dino-Action. "According to the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, there is no threshold for lead, that is, no amount that can be considered harmless, so lead can harm the development of the nervous system in children by negatively affecting their health „Behavior, attention, intelligence or threshold shift“ It is said in a presentation by Dr. Heike Itter from the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. In addition, lead is suspected to be carcinogenic to humans, to cause irreversible nerve damage to children and to lead to disorders of brain function. The toy badge also contained so-called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), some of which are carcinogenic. In addition, they are suspected of influencing the reproductive ability.

Children's toys must be produced without pollutants
Another worrying finding of the study is a high content of plasticizers in the toys. Bärbel Höhn, a member of the Greens, showed himself especially in the yellow plastic Unicorn figure from the children's book „The figure and the unicorn are "alarmed and shocked." The figure consists of 8.7 percent of the harmful softener diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), which corresponds to 80 times the EU limit of 0.1 percent according to the REACH regulation (EC 1907/2006) is allowed, explains the politician on her website. „As a Member of Parliament, I immediately turned to the Consumer Senator for the Land of Berlin, where the product was purchased, with the request to take the necessary measures to remove the harmful toy from the market“, informs Höhn. „I have filed a criminal complaint against the publisher who sells the newspaper with the non-negotiable toy in Germany.“

Höhn sees the so-called problematic particularly problematic „Cocktail effect“ the pollutants: „Plasticisers are not only in many toys, but also in many - already used by children - everyday used cosmetic products, such as sunscreen. In determining the limit values, which are sometimes intended to determine the quantity in which certain hazardous substances may still be absorbed, such cocktail effects are not taken into account.“

After all, two of the eight children's toys were pollutant-free. This shows the politician that it is possible, even under high cost pressure, the toys as „extra“ in the children's magazines to produce products without pollutants and to attach the booklets. (Ag)

Picture: Rike