Retailers urged to stop sale of lead-laced candles
TOXIC chemical and waste watch group EcoWaste Coalition has urged retailers in Manila’s Chinatown to halt the sale of candles with lead-cored wicks.
On Monday, the group conwicks. Australia in 2002 imposed ducted an awareness campaign at a permanent ban on candles with 11 stores in Chinatown to ask the wicks that contain 0.06 percent retailers to stop the importation lead. and sale of candles with leaded “With the health and safety wicks. of the consumers in mind, par
The leaded wick candles ticularly children who are most manufactured in China. vulnerable to lead exposure, we
“Fortunately, most locally-made request the FDA to release a public candles are non-cored wicks made health warning against lead-cored of braided or twisted cotton and wick candles and to stop importpresent no risk of lead pollution,” ers, distributors and retailers from said Thony Dizon, Coordinaselling such toxic candles,” the tor, EcoWaste Coalition’s Project group wrote to the FDA in SepProtect. tember 2016.
The group notified the Food In response to EcoWaste Coand Drug Administration (FDA) last year about the trade of leaded issued FDA Advisory 2016- 146 wick candles in the local market, entitled “Public Health Advisory pointing out that these would be on Lead- Cored Wick Candles” illegal to sell in other countries last month. such as in Australia, Finland, Den“While the advisory did not mark and the US, which have all ban the sale of lead-cored wick banned candles with lead-cored candles as we have sought, it are clearly warned that the purchase and use of such candles pose an ‘imminent hazard to the public health,’ providing a cue that such products must not be produced and sold at all,” Dizon said.
“We’re keeping our fingers crossed that a follow- up directive would outlaw the sale of all candles with wicks and other components containing lead for full compliance by candle makers and traders,” he added.
Armed with copies of the advisory, EcoWaste Coalition members visited stores selling Chinese praying paraphernalia such as candles and informed storeowners about the adverse health effects of candles with lead-cored wicks.
“As a lead-cored wick candle burns, some of the lead may vaporize and be released into the air. This airborne lead may be inhaled and may deposit onto - faces in the room where children may be exposed to it,” the FDA advisory said.
The FDA said that exposure to lead emissions “can result in increased blood lead levels in unborn babies, babies and young children,” adding that, “other toxic effects include neurological damage, delayed mental and physical development, and attention and
EcoWaste Coalition disclosed that in 2014 the group bought imported candles with lead-cored wicks from Wonderful Trading, a shop selling Chinese prayer articles, and then sent them to a private laboratory for lead content analysis. As per the laboratory test report, the wicks of approximately 20 candles were found to contain 20.735 percent lead.
“As a precaution against lead exposure, we advise consumers to patronize ‘ made in the Philippines’ candles with non- cored wicks and avoid those with cored wicks as the metal inside may be lead-based,” Dizon said.
The World Health Organization ( WHO) has long maintained, “There is no known level of lead exposure that is considered safe,” and lists lead as one of the “ten chemicals of major public health concern.”