Lead Stabilizers in PVC Fact Sheet

Polyvinyl chloride or “PVC” is being used more and more often in various product formulations. While extremely useful in many applications, PVC has the inherent problem of forming hydrochloric acid (HCl) as it degrades. This results in a loss of material strength. To remedy this problem, "stabilizers" are added to the chemical compound during its manufacture. The stabilizers are usually metal salts that are able to react or bond with the HCl to keep it intact in the compound; common metals used for this purpose include cadmium, barium, calcium, zinc, organic tin compounds, and lead.

Unfortunately, some metal stabilizers, including lead, don’t mix real well in the PVC and have a tendency to clump and migrate to the material’s surface. This occurs even more rapidly when the product is stressed or exposed to direct sunlight. Thus, lead can accumulate on the surface of a PVC product and be transferred to hands or directly into a user’s mouth. This source of lead contamination is particularly dangerous because so few people expect lead to be present on the surface of these PVC products, and because many of the products are used by pregnant women, babies or young children. So, it is important to test PVC products for lead and, when lead-free products are not available, or the exposure is unavoidable, to wash your hands thoroughly after handling the leaded products.

Note that lead is not used in clear vinyl, but it is often present in colored vinyl.