Sekerak 2016 — Cadmium and other metals in Washington children’s jewelry (WSDOE 16-03-007)

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% 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% 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 (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 (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; “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 nelson2023-wa-childrens-jewelry-followup (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, As, Co, 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.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• lead
• cadmium
• antimony
• arsenic-total
• cobalt
• mercury-total
• molybdenum
• childrens-jewelry

Verification notes

• Source identification. Sekerak, Sara. 2016. Cadmium and Other Metals in Children’s Jewelry. Publication 16-03-007. Washington State Department of Ecology, Environmental Assessment Program, Olympia, WA. Seven-page agency study issued March 2016. Lead author Sara Sekerak (Environmental Assessment Program; sara.sekerak@ecy.wa.gov). Available at https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/publications/1603007.html.
• Author attribution. Single author Sara Sekerak. The 2015 project’s QAPP (Sekerak 2015, Publication 15-03-125) and the procedural product-sampling reference (van Bergen 2014, Publication 14-04-013) are cited as the methods-procedural foundation of the study but are not separately ingested as occurrence sources.
• DOI. No DOI assigned; Washington State agency publications are not normally DOI-registered. doi: null with no_doi_assigned: true and access_url populated.
• License. Washington State agency publication; public-domain under state-government work convention.
• Tier rationale. A-tier per Part 13: government regulatory-compliance study from a state environmental agency operating under statutory authority (CSPA Ch. 70.240 RCW), conducted by an accredited state laboratory (MEL) under a formal QAPP (Sekerak 2015). Matches the existing handling of state and federal agency product-testing publications already in the corpus.
• Source-type rationale. source_type: regulatory: the document is a state agency compliance-monitoring publication issued under CSPA’s compliance-assessment authority, with lab results submitted to Ecology’s CSPA enforcement coordinator and forwarded to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission for federal enforcement (p. 6). Matches the corpus convention for state-agency CSPA/Prop-65/CPSC compliance studies.
• Frontmatter metals: [Pb, Cd, Sb, tAs, Co, tHg, Mo] reflects the seven analytes the study reports (lead, cadmium, antimony, arsenic, cobalt, mercury, molybdenum). Arsenic abbreviation is tAs (total) — the study does not speciate inorganic from total arsenic; ICP-MS following EPA 6020A as run reports total elemental arsenic. Mercury abbreviation is tHg (total) — the study does not separate methylmercury from total mercury; ICP-MS under EPA 6020A reports total mercury. Sb is total antimony, Co is total cobalt, Mo is total molybdenum. Pb and Cd carry no speciation question at the conventional ICP-MS reporting level.
• Frontmatter ingredients: [] is correct — no food ingredients involved. This is a consumer-product compliance-monitoring study of jewelry items.
• Frontmatter matrices: [] is correct — no food or biological matrices. The laboratory samples are metal and metal-plus-plastic component-of-jewelry matrices; these are hard-goods consumer-product matrices, not the food/biomonitoring controlled-vocabulary matrices the routing layer routes on.
• Frontmatter products: ["[[products/childrens-jewelry]]"] uses the broad children’s-jewelry umbrella slug, which already exists as a provisional scaffold in the taxonomy (created during the 2026-05-31 ingest of nelson2023-wa-childrens-jewelry-followup). The single broad slug is chosen rather than separate sub-form slugs (necklaces, bracelets, earrings, charms-pendants, rings, hair-accessories, jewelry-variety-packs, apparel-with-jewelry) because: (i) the study reports aggregate detection statistics across all jewelry types together (Table 2) rather than by-jewelry-type statistics; (ii) per the Phase 1 broad-scope rule, frontmatter is not over-narrowed to specific sub-categories the source does not separately analyse statistically; (iii) the by-type detection counts and the apparel-jewelry per-sample table (Table 3) appear as descriptive distribution but the underlying laboratory sample frame (38 prioritised components) is too small to support per-sub-type direct-evidence routing.
• Frontmatter jurisdictions: [US] — Washington state agency publication issued under Washington state statute. Convention in the corpus is country-level codes; the Washington-specific state context is captured in the page body and in the publication: field rather than in a state-level jurisdiction code.
• Brand-firewall (Part 12, strict reading locked 2026-05-17). The source identifies products by descriptive component descriptors (“necklace pendant/charm sold with a child’s dress”, “silver-coloured beads”, “gold-coloured earring”, “chain from a necklace packaged with a shirt”) rather than by brand. No brand names appear in the source text; the cover image caption (“Necklace with high cadmium levels sold with a child’s dress”) is also brand-anonymous. The descriptive product-form descriptors (Dress Necklace #1–#6, Shirt Necklace #1–#2, “gold-coloured earring”, “silver-coloured beads”) are sample-identification descriptors and product-form descriptors, not brand identifiers, and are preserved as the product-form descriptor on this wiki page.
• Scientific-method vendor/material names (Part 12 Exception 2). Methods section names the analytical method (ICP-MS following EPA Method 6020A), the digestion method (microwave digestion following EPA Method 3052), the laboratory (Washington State Department of Ecology Manchester Environmental Laboratory, MEL), the calibration standards convention (NIST-traceable), and the certified reference material (ERM-EC680k). These are scientific-method identifications, not contamination-value brand attributions, and are kept per the locked Exception 2 reading.
• Wiki/HMTc firewall (Part 2). The Implications section reports the agency’s documented finding and the category-level distribution as expressed in the source. It does not propose HMTc threshold values, does not soften or strengthen the reported values, and frames the cross-study comparison with the 2018 follow-up (Nelson 2023) as descriptive consistency rather than as synthesis. The HMTc audit implications bullet describes what the study contributes to threshold work (an upper-tail-targeted distribution from XRF prioritisation) without proposing a threshold, on the allowed side of the Part 2 boundary per audit-prompt.md.
• Speciation flag. As above: arsenic is total (tAs) and mercury is total (tHg) because the source does not speciate; no MeHg, iAs, iHg, or Cr-VI claims are made. Lead, cadmium, antimony, cobalt, and molybdenum carry no speciation question at the EPA 6020A ICP-MS level.
• Regulation references. The source cites Washington’s Children’s Safe Products Act (CSPA, Ch. 70.240 RCW) restriction limits (40 ppm Cd, 90 ppm Pb) and the 100 ppm CHCC reporting threshold under Chapter 173-334 WAC. Neither of these Washington state regulations currently has a dedicated wiki/regulations/ page; the page references them by name and statutory citation in the body and Compliance Summary discussion rather than wikilinking to non-existent regulation slugs. Not created speculatively from this single source. The 2018 follow-up (Nelson 2023) uses the same statutory reference frame.
• Folder context vs paper scope. The PDF lives under _extracted_infantcontact_02_Teethers_Pacifiers/02_Teethers_Pacifiers/ in the Kimi corruption-issue raw tree, but the document is not a teether or pacifier study — it is a children’s jewelry compliance survey. The folder naming reflects the Kimi-agent’s batch-organisation scheme during the May 21 corruption-recovery extraction, not the paper’s actual content. The product slug is childrens-jewelry, not pacifiers-and-sucking-teething-aids. Mirrors the same folder-vs-scope note in the 2018 follow-up page.
• Number transcription notes.
  • The Overview “Highlighted Findings” sidebar (p. 1) lists Sb at “1,180 ppm” as the second-highest antimony detection; this is consistent with the Results-by-metal narrative on p. 4 (“1,960 ppm and 1,180 ppm”).
  • The Pb MS/MSD recoveries (70,600 ppm = 7.1% / 107,000 ppm = 10.7%) on the 50,100 ppm pendant/charm sample are reported by the agency as evidence that the underlying Pb concentration may be ~10% by mass; the wiki page preserves the agency’s own published rendering and framing (“may be up to 10% or even higher”) rather than restating the recoveries as a corrected occurrence value. (Audit-subagent 2026-06-01 flagged a draft showing the MS recovery as “7.06%” — arithmetically correct but more precise than the source’s “7.1%” rendering; aligned to the source’s “7.1%” on review for strict literature fidelity.)
  • Table 3 (p. 5) leaves cells blank where the analyte was either below RL or not reported above the 100 ppm CHCC threshold for that sample; the wiki page reproduces blank cells as ”—” to make the empty-cell semantics explicit.
• n vs n > RL accounting. Table 2 (p. 4) reports n = 38 for every analyte (the lab-sample frame) and “n > RL” as the count of detected values per analyte. Detection-frequency percentages in the wiki page match Table 2’s reported ”% > RL” column exactly.
• Sample-population scope. The wiki sample_n field is 38 (the laboratory sample frame), matching the corpus convention used for the 2018 follow-up. The Summary-and-Conclusions p. 6 overall-corpus detection counts (16% Cd / 23% Pb of 159 products) are also preserved in the Key numbers section because they support the broader category-level signal.
• Near-duplicates. nelson2023-wa-childrens-jewelry-followup is the 2018 follow-up to this 2015 baseline study (re-uses the XRF prioritisation, MEL ICP-MS confirmation, and CSPA/CHCC compliance-reference frame). The two studies are methodological near-duplicates and category-level continuation, not data-duplicates: separate product frames, separate purchasing windows, separate sample IDs.
• Raw integrity. raw_sha256 = 868c8f6397dc98c25cbcd3c284bc27aed614be02cac66fb456a29a4d06da82eb verified by shasum -a 256 against the file at raw_path.

Page history

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