More than two-thirds of the paint sold in Taiwan contain excessively high levels of lead by Singaporean and US standards, environmentalists and legislators said.
The Taiwan Watch Institute last week said that 31 out of 47 paint products it tested had lead levels higher than Singapore’s limit of 600 parts per million (ppm), while 36 paint products had lead levels higher than the US’ limit of 90ppm.
Twenty-two products had lead levels of more than 10,000ppm, and lead concentration in a corrosion-resistant paint marketed under the brand name Rainbow Paints (虹牌油漆) was as high as 440,000ppm — hundreds of times higher than international standards, researcher Sun Wei-tzu (孫瑋孜) said.
Taiwan has no regulation limiting lead content in paint.
“Paint can have scarily high lead content because there is no limit on heavy metals in paints used in buildings and furniture. While there is a set of recommendations, the standards do not have any legally binding force,” institute secretary-general Herlin Hsieh (謝和霖) said.
The institute also tested paint on park facilities and playground equipment, and found that eight of the 10 tested samples had lead levels of more than 600ppm, as well as high levels of chromium and arsenic, exposing the public — especially children — to the risks of heavy metal poisoning.
“Blood lead levels of more than 5 parts per billion can cause irreversible nervous system damage in children, leading to attention deficit disorder and lower intelligence. There are 200,000 students with attention deficit disorders in Taiwan, which could be associated with lead exposure,” Chang Gung University toxicology professor Lin Chung-yin (林中英) said.
Officials at the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection — the authority in charge of coating materials — said they are mulling a limit on lead content in paint in accordance with international standards “if there are international standards for it.”
“Most industrialized countries have standards for lead paints, so do many Southeastern Asian countries. Singapore and Sri Lanka established a 600ppm limit a few years ago. The Philippines and Nepal set the limit at 90ppm. Thailand this year set the limit at 100pm. There are international standards, but the bureau does not seem to be aware of them,” Sun said.
“A public hearing on the issue was held last year, and the bureau promised to establish standards for heavy metals in paint, but six months have passed and it is still studying international standards,” Hsieh said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wu Kun-yuh (吳焜裕) said lawmakers are expected to propose a draft regulation in two months to limit lead levels in paint to less than 90ppm.
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