Cadmium and Other Metals in Children's Jewelry

Overview

This Washington State Department of Ecology Environmental Assessment Program publication (Sekerak 2016, Publication 16-03-007) is the agency’s 2015 baseline survey of cadmium, lead, and five additional Chemicals of High Concern to Children (CHCC) — antimony, arsenic, cobalt, mercury, and molybdenum — in children’s jewelry sold in Washington State. The study was conducted under the Children’s Safe Products Act (CSPA, Chapter 70.240 RCW), which restricts cadmium in children’s products to 40 ppm and lead to 90 ppm and requires manufacturers to report any CHCC present above the 100 ppm CHCC reporting threshold. Ecology purchased 159 articles of inexpensive all-metal and metal-plus-plastic children’s jewelry in September-October 2015, disassembled them into 893 individual components, screened all components with X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and submitted 38 prioritised components (37 unique components plus one field duplicate) to the Manchester Environmental Laboratory (MEL) for ICP-MS analysis (EPA Method 6020A) following microwave digestion (EPA Method 3052). All 38 laboratory samples contained at least one of the seven target metals above the laboratory reporting limit. Thirteen of the 38 samples (34%) exceeded the 100 ppm CHCC reporting threshold for at least one analyte. Cadmium was detected in 26 of 38 samples (68%) with a maximum of 984,000 ppm (98.4% cadmium (Cd) by mass) in a necklace pendant/charm component sold with a child’s dress. Lead was the most frequently detected analyte (37 of 38 samples, 97%), with a maximum of 50,100 ppm (5.01% lead (Pb) by mass) in another necklace pendant/charm sold with a child’s dress; matrix-spike and matrix-spike-duplicate recoveries on that sample (70,600 ppm and 107,000 ppm respectively) suggest the underlying lead concentration in the pendant component may be as high as 10% by mass.

Key numbers

Sample frame

• Products purchased: 159 articles of inexpensive all-metal and metal-plus-plastic children’s jewelry (p. 1, p. 2).
• Retailer sourcing: 15 large south-Puget-Sound retail stores and 3 online retailers (18 retailers total) (p. 2).
• Purchase window: September and October 2015 (p. 2).
• Children’s jewelry definition (this study): products designed and intended as an ornament primarily worn by children 12 years or younger; labelled for children, marketed for children, or sold with children’s apparel (p. 2).
• Product-type distribution of the 159 purchased (Figure 2, p. 2): Bracelets n=37, Earrings n=35, Necklaces n=33, Necklaces with apparel n=27, Hair accessories n=10, Rings n=9, Charms/pendants n=6, Jewelry variety pack n=2.
• Total individual components yielded by disassembly: 893 (p. 1, p. 2).
• Components submitted to MEL for ICP-MS analysis: 38 (37 unique components plus 1 field duplicate of one of the 37) (p. 2, p. 3).
• XRF prioritisation criteria for MEL submission: any XRF-measurable cadmium, OR XRF-detected lead above 90 ppm (p. 2, p. 4).
• Samples with at least one detected metal above the reporting limit: 38 of 38 (100%) (p. 1, p. 4).
• Samples with at least one detected metal above the 100 ppm CHCC reporting threshold: 13 of 38 (34%) (p. 4, p. 6).

Detection frequencies and detected-value ranges (Table 2, p. 4)

Reporting limits (RL): 1.0 ppm for metals other than mercury; 0.5 ppm for mercury. “Minimum (ppm)” and “Maximum (ppm)” statistics include only detected results (Table 2 footnote, p. 4).

Overall-corpus detection counts (Summary, p. 6)

• Cadmium detected in 16% (26/159) of overall purchased products and 68% of laboratory samples (p. 6).
• Lead detected in 23% (37/159) of overall purchased products and 97% of laboratory samples (p. 6).

Results by metal — narrative detail (p. 4–5)

• Cadmium (Cd). Detected in 26 of 38 lab samples (68%); range < 1 ppm to 984,000 ppm. The four highest cadmium concentrations — 984,000 ppm (98.4%), 931,000 ppm (93.1%), 534,000 ppm (53.4%), and 397,000 ppm (39.7%) — were measured in four separate necklace pendant/charm components from necklaces packaged with children’s dresses. One additional sample, a gold-coloured earring, contained cadmium at 54.3 ppm (p. 4).
• Lead (Pb). Detected in 37 of 38 lab samples (97%); range < 1 ppm to 50,100 ppm (> 5.0%). The highest-lead sample was a necklace pendant/charm sold with a child’s dress and was selected as the batch quality-control matrix-spike (MS) and matrix-spike-duplicate (MSD) sample; the MS and MSD recoveries on that sample yielded 70,600 ppm (7.1%) and 107,000 ppm (10.7%) respectively (p. 4). Because the MS/MSD spike addition (100 ppm spike level) is small relative to the source concentration, the high MS/MSD recoveries are interpreted to suggest that the actual lead concentration in the pendant/charm component may be as high as 10% by mass or higher. Additional notable lead findings: a necklace sold with a dress at 846 ppm, a bracelet-set component at 107 ppm, and another bracelet at 110 ppm (p. 4).
• Antimony (Sb). Detected in 18 of 38 lab samples (47%). Highest detections 1,960 ppm and 1,180 ppm in silver-coloured beads and a silver-coloured charm on two bracelets, respectively (p. 4).
• Arsenic total arsenic (tAs). Detected in 15 of 38 lab samples (39%); range < 1 ppm to 408 ppm. Highest concentration was in a chain from a necklace packaged with a shirt (p. 5).
• Cobalt (Co). Detected in 29 of 38 lab samples (76%); range < 1 ppm to 637 ppm (p. 5).
• Molybdenum (Mo). Detected in 23 of 38 lab samples (61%); range < 1 ppm to 40.6 ppm — substantially lower concentrations than the other detected analytes (p. 5).
• Mercury total mercury (tHg). Detected in 11 of 38 lab samples (29%); no sample contained mercury at a level higher than 1 ppm (p. 5).

Toxic-metal exceedances in jewelry sold with children’s apparel (Table 3, Figures 3a-c, p. 5)

All 8 children’s-apparel-jewelry samples submitted for laboratory testing contained one or more toxic metals above the 100 ppm CSPA CHCC reporting threshold. Per-sample concentrations from Table 3:

* Cobalt total for Dress Necklace #1 is the sum of two separately tested components: chain 637 ppm + pendant 145 ppm (Table 3 footnote, p. 5).

CSPA compliance reference limits (per Figures 3a-c): cadmium 40 ppm restriction, lead 90 ppm restriction, 100 ppm CHCC reporting threshold for the other analytes.

Field-duplicate precision (Table 1, p. 3)

A random component sample was replicated during sample preparation and submitted to MEL as a field duplicate; replicate sample-analyte values were:

RPD = relative percent difference; “uranium (U)” = not detected at or above the reported sample quantitation limit; precision MQO for duplicate RPD = ≤ 20% (Table 1 footnotes, p. 3).

Aggregated CSPA / CHCC summary (Summary and Conclusions, p. 6)

• 13 of 38 laboratory samples (34%) contained at least one metal above the 100 ppm CHCC reporting threshold, requiring assessment against CSPA CHCC reporting guidelines (p. 6).
• 8 of 38 laboratory samples require further assessment against CSPA cadmium (40 ppm) and lead (90 ppm) restriction limits, including 5 samples with more than 5% cadmium or lead by mass (p. 6).
• All 8 apparel-jewelry samples submitted for testing contained at least one toxic metal above the 100 ppm CHCC reporting threshold (p. 5).
• The highest toxic-metal levels were typically found in children’s jewelry sold as an accessory with an article of children’s clothing (p. 1, p. 6).

Methods (brief)

Children’s jewelry was defined as products designed and intended as an ornament primarily worn by children 12 years or younger; labelled for children, marketed for children, or sold with children’s apparel (p. 2). 159 articles were purchased from 15 large south-Puget-Sound retail stores and 3 online retailers in September and October 2015, then catalogued and disassembled into 893 individual product components (p. 2). All 893 components were screened with X-ray fluorescence (XRF) for the seven target metals; components were prioritised for laboratory analysis if XRF screening detected any cadmium concentration, or if XRF screening detected lead above 90 ppm. 37 individual metal-based components were selected on these criteria; one additional portion was analysed as a field duplicate, yielding 38 laboratory samples (p. 2).

Sample preparation and analysis were performed by the Washington State Department of Ecology Manchester Environmental Laboratory (MEL) in three batches, using microwave digestion following U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Method 3052 and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) following EPA Method 6020A (p. 3). Instruments were calibrated with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) traceable standards and verified with a second-source NIST traceable standard; standard residuals and initial and continuing instrument-calibration verification checks were within acceptance limits (p. 3).

Quality control was conducted per the project’s Quality Assurance Project Plan (Sekerak 2015, Publication 15-03-125) and included method blanks, laboratory control samples (LCSs), laboratory duplicates, matrix spikes (MSs), MS duplicates (MSDs), and a certified reference material (CRM, ERM-EC680k) per sample batch (p. 3). No method-blank analyte exceeded the reporting limit. All LCS and CRM recoveries were within acceptance limits. Duplicate QC data were within measurement quality objectives with one exception (cobalt RPD), and the corresponding source-sample cobalt result was qualified “J” as an estimate. MS recoveries were within acceptance limits with one exception, a high-lead-and-antimony sample where the spike concentration was insufficient relative to the source concentration; the corresponding source-sample lead and antimony values were qualified “J” as estimates (p. 3). Field-duplicate precision was within MQOs (Table 1, p. 3).

Reporting limits: 1.0 ppm for antimony, arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, lead, and molybdenum; 0.5 ppm for mercury (Table 2 footnote, p. 4). Complete laboratory results are publicly downloadable from Ecology’s Product Testing Database at https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/ptdbpublicreporting/ by selecting Study: Cadmium and Metals in Children’s Jewelry.

Implications

• Children’s-product compliance baseline (WA state, CSPA). This study is the agency-baseline 2015 children’s jewelry survey under Washington State’s Children’s Safe Products Act (CSPA, Chapter 70.240 RCW) compliance-monitoring programme. The detection-frequency picture (lead in 97% of 38 prioritised components; cadmium in 68%) and the per-mass extreme-value findings (cadmium up to 98.4% by mass; lead up to 5.01% by mass with MS/MSD evidence suggesting up to ~10% by mass) are the agency-reported initial-period non-compliance signal that Ecology submitted to the CSPA enforcement coordinator and forwarded to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for federal-law assessment. The study does not propose a new threshold; it documents exceedance of the 40 ppm cadmium and 90 ppm lead CSPA restrictions and the 100 ppm CHCC reporting threshold in children’s jewelry sold in Washington retail and online channels in late 2015. The 2018 follow-up Cadmium and Other Metals in Children's Jewelry 2018, Follow-up Study (WSDOE Publication 23-03-004) re-runs the same prioritisation-and-ICP-MS methodology with a smaller product frame (78 items, 555 components, 38 prioritised samples) and continues to find percent-by-mass cadmium and lead concentrations in metal jewelry components sold as accessories with children’s apparel.

• HMTc audit implications. For any HMTc certification work that addresses children’s jewelry or jewelry-adjacent accessories sold with children’s apparel, this study provides the agency-tested 2015 baseline distribution of Pb, Cd, Sb, arsenic (As), Co, mercury (Hg), and Mo occurrence in metal and metal-plus-plastic children’s jewelry components. The prioritisation methodology (XRF screening of all 893 components, ICP-MS confirmation of the 38 highest-XRF prioritised) is a credible category-level worst-case-targeting design; the resulting distribution is the upper-tail picture, not a random-sample picture, and HMTc threshold-setting that cites this study should preserve that distinction. The category-level finding — that the most extreme Pb/Cd concentrations occur in metal jewelry components sold as accessories with children’s apparel — is the actionable contamination-platform finding for downstream Step 0 Lock work on children’s jewelry as a category, and it is consistent across the 2015 baseline and the 2018 follow-up.

• App. Not directly relevant to ingredient contamination_profile data because no food-matrix occurrence values are reported. Relevant to a future children’s-product screening surface that explains why metal jewelry components — particularly jewelry sold as apparel accessories — can be a high-Pb, high-Cd exposure source by ingestion (small parts that can be mouthed or swallowed by young children) or by dermal/saliva contact.

• Courses. Worked example for the regulatory-compliance module of how a state agency uses XRF screening to prioritise component samples for confirmatory laboratory analysis under a per-product-class compliance-monitoring statute (CSPA Chapter 70.240 RCW). Also a primary-source illustration of the gap between (i) the substance-level restriction limit (40 ppm Cd, 90 ppm Pb) and (ii) the contaminant-reporting threshold (100 ppm CHCC) that triggers manufacturer reporting under Chapter 173-334 WAC.

• Microbiome. Not applicable. No biological matrix and no exposure-pathway measurements relevant to gut microbiome interaction.

Related evidence

• Lead
• Cadmium
• Antimony
• Arsenic, Total
• Cobalt
• Mercury, Total
• Molybdenum
• Children's Jewelry

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