Kids’ cartoon drinking glasses ‘contain 30pc lead’

LONDON - The next time you decide to buy those jazzy cartoon drinking glasses for your kids, better be careful as they have been found to exceed recommended health limits of lead by up to 1,000 times.

The research has concluded that the decorative enamel on certain merchandising glasses contain between 16 and 30 per cent of the dangerous metal, known to reduce children’s IQ.

The drinking sets of movie characters such as Superman, Wonder Woman and the Tin Man from ‘The Wizard of Oz, are made in China and purchased at a Warner Brothers Studios store in Burbank, California.

The testing, conducted by ToyTestingLab of Rhode Island, found that the enamel used to colour the Tin Man had the highest lead levels, at 1,006 times the federal limit for children’s products.

“I was extremely surprised at the levels,” the Daily Mail quoted Paul Perrotti, of the ToyTestingLab’s, as saying.

Every Oz and superhero glass tested exceeded the government limit: The Lion by 827 times and Dorothy by 770 times; Wonder Woman by 533 times, Superman by 617 times, Batman by 750 times and the Green Lantern by 677 times.

The same glasses also contained relatively high levels of the even-more-dangerous cadmium, though there are no limits on that toxic metal in design surfaces.

That toxic metal comprised up to 2.5 percent of the decorative surface of the Oz and superhero glasses, nearly double the levels found in the recalled ‘Shrek’ glasses.

The worry is that the glasses will shed small but notable amounts of lead or cadmium from their decorations and drop into children’s mouths.

Among the brands on those glasses are Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Burger King and McDonald’s. (ANI)