Total lead concentration in new decorative enamel paints in Lebanon, Paraguay and Russia

• Paint with high concentrations of lead found in Lebanon, Paraguay and Russia.
• Egyptian (Sipes) and U.S.-affiliated (Dutch Boy) brands in Lebanon have high lead.
• In Paraguay high lead found in a brand with a license from ICI (Netherlands-based).
• In Russia the highest lead was found in paint from the most popular brand (TEKS).
• Maximum lead concentration in Russia is much lower than that in Lebanon and Paraguay.

Lead concentrations in new enamel decorative paints were determined in three countries in different areas of the world where data were not previously available. The average total lead concentration of the enamel decorative paints purchased in Lebanon, Paraguay and Russia was 24,500 ppm (ppm, dry weight), more than 270 times the current limit of 90 ppm in Canada and in the United States. Sixty-three percent of these paints contained concentrations greater than 90 ppm. Fifty-nine percent contained concentrations greater than 600 ppm, the current limit in some countries. The maximum concentrations found were 236,000 ppm in Lebanon, 169,000 ppm in Paraguay and 52,900 ppm in Russia. An average of 29% of the samples contained exceedingly high lead concentrations, >=10,000 ppm.Five brands of paint were sampled in each of Lebanon and Paraguay and seven in Russia. Three colors from each brand were analyzed. For five of the six samples of the two brands in Lebanon with affiliations outside the country, the lead concentrations ranged from 1360 ppm to 135,000 ppm. In Lebanon the maximum concentration in the Egypt-affiliated brand (Sipes) was 135,000 ppm and the maximum for the USA-affiliated brand (Dutch Boy) was 32,400 ppm. Lead was not detected in any paints from the three of the four brands of paint purchased in Paraguay that had headquarters/affiliations in other countries (Brazil-Coralit), Germany (Suvinil) and USA (Novacor)). Two of the three paints from each of the other Paraguay brands contained high levels of lead with the maximum concentrations of 108,000 and 168,000 ppm; one of these brands was manufactured under a license from ICI in the Netherlands. All of the paints purchased in Russia were from Russian brands and were manufactured in Russia. All three paints from one brand contained below detection levels of lead. The maximum levels of lead in the other six brands in Russia ranged from 3230 to 52,900 ppm. The two brands with the highest lead concentration, TEKS and LAKRA, were produced by companies in the top three in market share.. Overall, lead concentrations were much higher in the colored paints such as red and yellow than in white paints. In each of the three countries a brand based in that country had a colored paint that either met a 90 ppm limit or was close to meeting the limit-demonstrating that practical technology was available in each of these countries to produce low lead bright colored enamel decorative paints. Even though technology for producing paint without added lead existed in each of these countries, twenty-nine (29) percent of the paints analyzed contained exceedingly high concentrations (>=10,000 ppm) of lead.