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PVC Electrical Tape and Pipe Wrap
Polyvinyl chloride or PVC often utilizes lead-based
stabilizers in its manufacture. Click here for
more info on lead
stabilizers in PVC. The lead can rub off
on your hands.
Health Hazards:
The black (sometimes white or other colors) plastic
electrical tape has come to be used in various ways as a
common household item. Wrapping the handles of bicycles,
tennis rackets, and other sports items or tools with leaded
PVC tape is particularly dangerous since hands grip these
items and lead is transferred. Obviously, using this tape as
it is intended presents a potential lead risk as well to those
who handle it or use their teeth to break it.
How to Avoid or Minimize Exposure: Buy
lead-free electrical tape products. You can determine if a
brand of electrical tape or pipe wrap contains lead by using a
home lead test kit. If you use leaded PVC
tape, wash your hands thoroughly after touching the product.
Don't break the tape with your teeth. Three major electrical
tape manufacturers recently agreed to reformulate their
products in order to reduce the lead component: 3M, Applied
Power, Inc. (makers of Gardner Bender products), and GE Wiring
Devices. The reformulation was a result of lawsuits brought by
the Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation under
California’s Proposition 65. By early 2002,
their tapes will contain no more than 30ppm (parts per
million) lead. This law only applies to the state of
California; whether or not these products will be made safer
elsewhere is not yet known.
Links to Related Resources
ERF
Chemical Fact Sheet for Lead
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