An Eco Child’s Play Experiment: Lead in Backpacks?

Given all the latest information about lead in children’s lunchboxes, I became worried about my daughter’s backpack. Her backpack, obviously bought by Grandma and adored by my daughter, is made by a very commercial company (Disney) that targets children through character promotion (princesses). Since it has some vinyl on it, I wondered if it also contained lead like certain vinyl lunchboxes. I bought this home lead test kit at our local hardware store (I laugh when I use the word local to describe a hardware store two hours away) to do our own experiment. The test kit is very easy to use. A few drops of water is applied to a pad, then the surface of the backpack is gently rubbed for a couple of minutes. The results: her backpack is lead-free. We are relieved by the results, but I do wonder if lead is present in other vinyl products designed for children.

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