Federal regulators are investigating the safety of drinking glasses decorated with superheros and movie characters that were found to have up to 1,000 times the federal limits for lead in children’s products, says the Associated Press.
Laboratory tests commissioned by the AP found the glasses contained between 16 and 30.2 percent lead. The federal limit on lead in children’s products is 0.03 percent.
Decorated with characters such as Superman, Wonder Woman and the Tin Man from “The Wizard of Oz” and purchased at a Warner Brothers Studios store in Burbank, Calif., the glasses were also found to contain lesser amounts of cadmium, another toxic metal.
Vandor LLC of Utah, maker of the glasses, has told the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission that it will voluntarily pull the glasses from all stores. The company, however, said the glasses were intended for adults and should not be subject to regulations that apply to children’s products. Warner Brothers said it would stop selling the decorated glasses but also argued the products are intended for adults.
“It is generally understood that the primary consumer for these products is an adult, usually a collector,” Warner Brothers told the AP.
However, the AP pointed out that Warner Brother’s website sells the superhero glasses alongside kids’ T-shirts. One retail website even described the glasses as “a perfect way to serve cold drinks to your children or guests.”
In a separate incident, the Coca-Cola Co. has recalled 88,000 glasses that AP testing confirmed contained cadmium — though the company said the low levels of cadmium found in the glasses did not pose a safety problem.
The testing by the AP was conducted in response to a recall of 12 million cadmium-containing “Shrek” glasses sold at McDonald’s. The maker of those glasses, Arc International, said the products were made according to standard industry practices, which include the routine use of cadmium to create red and similar colors.
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