Environmental group EcoWaste Coalition has asked for a meeting with officials of the Department of Education (DepEd) to share the results of tests they conducted on school supplies from Divisoria which were found to contain harmful ingredients.
“We request the DepEd to coordinate with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Trade and Industry, the House of Representatives and the Senate for measures that can be pursued to cleanse the market of school supplies and other children’s products laced with harmful substances,” EcoWaste steering committee member Manny Calonzo said in a letter to the education department.
EcoWaste recently released the results of the chemical tests which showed that 15 out of the 25 products they bought in Divisoria contained “brain poison” lead in amounts beyond the acceptable limit.
Other school supplies also tested positive for toxic chemicals such as cadmium, antimony, arsenic and chromium.
Based on the results of the tests, two Cisco raincoats were found to have 4,749 and 14,100 parts per million (ppm) lead content; 55 and 278 ppm arsenic content; and 858 and 3,679 ppm chromium content.
According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, the lead threshold limit is only 90 ppm. EcoWaste put the arsenic threshold limit at 25 ppm, and chromium at 60 ppm.
An Ejan bag also registered a lead content of 1,250 ppm; Merit notebooks, pencil cases and crayons, 763 to 1040 ppm lead content; and a Sun Star pencil case from Japan, 822 ppm lead content and 4,026 chromium content.
Though not exceeding safety levels, China-made Xiao Shen Cai erasers contained 4.3 ppm of arsenic, a Disney ruler registered 5.4 ppm of arsenic while a YHBB bag registered 23.4 ppm of lead.