by You may have heard of the Stanley glass, the trendy water bottle that has people camping outside stores or fighting to get one.
They have become a fashion accessory, especially since the company that makes the mugs, Stanley 1913, has used influencer culture to target women and make sales of the cup skyrocket. The reach of the bottles has been amplified by social media users.
But social networks give and social networks take away. In recent weeks, several widely shared posts about Tik Tok, instagram, reddit and X have heightened concerns that Stanley glasses may contain lead, and one user of “Leader”. youtubers have also come to the fore. A TikTok video was seen on the topic. almost seven million times.
Some Stanley owners, hoping to verify the claims, began to use home lead testing kits, which according to experts are not reliable. TO Sending the Stanley Cup phenomenon On “Saturday Night Live” over the weekend (a sketch called “Big Dumb Cups”) he even mentioned the lead in passing.
The main discussion has appeared on Facebook. comments sectionsas in a group with more than 61,0000 members called “Stanley Cup Hunters + Drops”, for “passionate fans of the Stanley Cup.”
One person wrote, “If we want to dress our lead glasses in a flower straw case and a glitter boot and show them off, let’s be!! We know they have lead, you’ve told us. We do not care!
You may be wondering: Do I have to throw my Stanley Cup into the fireplace? (No. In fact, don’t throw anything down the fireplace.) We have some answers for those of you who really want to stay up to date and drink water on trend.
Do Stanley glasses contain lead?
Yes, according to company website. He says its “vacuum insulation technology,” which keeps the contents of the mug at an ideal temperature, uses “an industry-standard pad to seal the vacuum insulation into the base of our products.” The sealing material, he says, “includes some lead.”
Once the bottle is sealed, Stanley said, the area is covered with a layer of stainless steel, which the company says makes the lead “inaccessible to consumers.”
But is dangerous?
No. Almost certainly not.
Jack Caravanos, a public health professor at New York University who studies lead, tested three Stanley Cup models of different sizes on Monday using an X-ray fluorescence detector, which determines the elements of a material.
“There are a lot of places where there can be lead in a glass like that,” Dr. Caravanos said. “It could be on the inside, on the outside, on the labels, on the decals. And I found no lead (a kind of superficial lead on the surface) anywhere in the cup.”
“I am an expert in global exposure,” he added. “I have worked a lot on different products and countries. And the threat to human health is really negligible because you won’t really get your mouth close to that surface and it won’t easily dissolve into anything that can get into you..”
But what about the area under the stainless steel?
To do that, Dr. Caravanos said he would have to deconstruct the cup itself, which is no easy task.
“I repeatedly tried to open the bottom cover with various tools and failed,” he said. “Maybe the lead is being used to seal the lid. In any case, it should further assure the public that it is highly unlikely that lead material will ever leave the container and be available for ingestion.”
Dr. Caravanos said home lead tests currently on the market are not considered reliable and none of those available today are approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. However, on Tuesday morning, Dr. Caravanos attempted an at-home test in a cup and still did not get a positive result.
So we’re all good, right?
For starters, the fact that the cups use any type of lead demonstrates “poor thinking” on the company’s part, Dr. Caravanos said.
““I’m really disheartened and a little angry that a company like this uses a known toxic ingredient that is banned in many applications for a cup,” he said. “I mean, surely there could have been an alternative.”
A Stanley representative referred to the explanation on the company’s website describing the use of lead in the glasses. But in a statement to NBC Newssaid a representative: “Our engineering and supply chain teams are advancing alternative and innovative materials for use in the sealing process.”
Lead, what is it regulated by the federal governmentIt is still prevalent in the United States, particularly in paint, cookware, and water traveling through lead pipes.
“There are many health effects associated with lead exposure, such as reproductive toxicity and cardiovascular disease,” said María José Talayero, a public health researcher at George Washington University. “And the one I study the most is damage to the nervous system, which results in a variety of neurological effects.”
He added: “But it’s a fact that other mugs and other manufacturers don’t use lead, so why have it there in the first place?”
