Deadly drinkware: a vintage lover’s guide to not getting lead poisoning
I love vintage barware. I love scanning thrift shop shelves for wobblystemmed green martini glasses and cups with little strawberries painted on them. I love the way these things look on my bar cart and the way they feel in my hand. I love that they’re stylish, affordable and eco-friendly. But I definitely would not love to get lead poisoning from them, and unfortunately, some of these homewares might carry that risk.
Before US regulatory measures introduced in the mid-1970s, manufacturers often added lead, and to a lesser extent, the carcinogens cadmium and arsenic, to ceramic glazes, painted barware and crystal glassware, to improve their appearance or durability. As a result, some vintage items contain toxic substances, making them a potential source of lead poisoning.
“Vintage barware can have enough contaminants to cause biological harm to humans,” says Tamara Rubin, an Oregon-based lead-poisoning prevention advocate.
Repeated exposure to lead and cadmium can cause it to accumulate in our bones and kidneys respectively, contributing to a wide range of health outcomes, including reduced bone density, neurological issues, low sperm count, mood disorders, joint pain and heart disease. (Other common sources of lead include house paint manufactured before 1978 and soil, which can be contaminated by leaded fuel.) In the US, an estimated 410,000 people die prematurely from complications associated with lead poisoning each year.
So, what’s a vintage lover to do? Here’s what experts suggest.
Take caution
Intermittently coming into contact with a small amount of lead might not seem alarming, but the cumulative impacts of even low-level exposures can lead to health issues. “If you can avoid the exposure, why not?” advises Dr Nicholas Newman, a researcher and physician specializing in lead poisoning at Cincinnati Children’s hospital medical center. This caution is especially pertinent for households with children, who are small and put everything in their mouths, or pregnant people, who are especially vulnerable to lead. It’s wise to treat vintage barware that you suspect may contain lead as decorative rather than functional.
Assess your items (or ask an expert to do it for you)
Unfortunately, it’s tricky to determine if an item contains lead without help from a specialized consumer product testing lab – this can be difficult given most focus on testing paint and soil – or pricy professional services. While DIY lead-test swabs can be found at hardware stores, they are not specifically designed for consumer items, leading to potentially unreliable results.
A sophisticated piece of lab-grade equipment known as an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (or XRF machine) provides far more accurate readings of the elements in a given object. These machines are costly and require training to use, but Rubin employs one to test products for her website, Lead Safe Mama. She’s built an extensive archive of test results on popular vintage items, like floral glassware, milk glass and illustrated mugs, and accepts donated items for testing. In 2019, Rubin posted about discovering one piece of her own inherited vintage barware pieces contained a shocking 90,000 parts per