EWG Action Fund calls for ban on asbestos.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: An environmental group is calling for a ban on asbestos in products after it found traces of the carcinogen in children’s crayons and toy crime lab kits.
The EWG Action Fund has attested four of 28 boxes of crayons tested positive for asbestos. A private lab hired by the EWG Action Fund, a sister organization of the Environmental Working Group, also detected and confirmed asbestos in two of 21 toy crime lab kits it evaluated.
“We were surprised,” report co-author Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based group, told U.S. News & World Report. “Crayons and crime-scene toys were found to have asbestos in years gone by, and the manufacturers of both had already promised to deal with the problem,” she explained.
“All the products that tested positive were manufactured in China,” said Lunder. “This makes it harder to follow the supply chain and enact and enforce pledges to have asbestos-free products.”
Affected crayon boxes included Amscan Crayons purchased at Party City as well as Disney Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Crayons and Saban’s Power Rangers Super Megaforce boxes purchased at Dollar Tree, according to CNN.
The two toy crime lab kits with contaminants included the black fingerprint powder in the Edu Science Deluxe Forensics Lab Kit, purchased at ToysRUs.com, and the white fingerprint powder from the Inside Intelligence Secret Spy kit, purchased on Amazon.com.
The EWG Action Fund is now calling for regulatory and policy changes and claims there is a need for more arduous methods of detecting asbestos and asbestos-like fibers in consumer products. The organization also wants to see talc, which is often contaminated asbestos, banned from children’s products such as crayons, fingerprint kits, and chalk.