Bouncy houses tainted with lead
Beware the bouncy house! An unacceptably high amount of lead has been found on these fun play structures, prompting the California attorney general to sue.
Wed, Aug 11 2010 at 5:40 PM EST
Photo: bionicteaching/Flickr Add bouncy houses to the long list of fun kid stuff now tainted with toxic materials. If slow death by rubber duck and cadmium poisoning by children’s jewelry weren’t enough doom and gloom for you, perhaps lead contamination by bouncy houses could cast a permanent cloud over your once-happy childhood memories.
Apparently, those playful plush bouncy houses — arguably healthy-promoting since the structures get kids to exercise — often contain an alarming amount of lead. Reports the L.A. Times:
Federal limits on lead in children’s products are 90 parts per million for painted surfaces and 300 ppm for all other parts. In the case of some inflatable structures, the lead levels of the vinyl were as high as 5,000 ppm to 29,000 ppm. Children are usually exposed to the toxic material through hand-to-mouth contact after playing on the vinyl.
Now California Attorney General Jerry Brown has filed a lawsuit that “demands that companies stop selling the contaminated materials and requires rental companies to post warnings.” In the meantime, it’s up to you to keep kids from bouncing off these lead-tainted structures.
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