Asbestos in Crayons?
Mesothelioma Expert | August 22, 2011Asbestos in crayons? Say it ain’t so.
If your child colors with one of the big three brands: Crayola, Prang or Rose Art, you don’t have anything to worry about.
Talc was once used by American crayon makers as a strengthening agent in crayons. Researchers raised concerns that the talc was contaminated with tremolite, a form of asbestos. Asbestos is a carcinogen associated with mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases.
Natural talc is sometimes contaminated asbestos, and if contaminated talc is used to make crayons, children, especially young children who chew or eat their crayons could be unnecessarily exposed to asbestos. The talc used by American crayon manufacturers comes largely from one source, a mine in New York. The New York talc mine was at the center of a decades-long battle over the definition of asbestos.
The original tests showed the presence of asbestos in 80 percent of the crayons submitted for testing. At the time, researchers stressed that the asbestos fibers were embedded in the wax of the crayons and were unlikely to become airborne. The crayon wax also made it unlikely that eating the crayons could cause health problems. Even so, scientists called any preventable exposure undesirable, especially for very young children.
In 2000, the United States government asked the three major American crayon manufacturers Binney & Smith (Crayola), Dixon Ticonderoga (Prang) and Rose Art Industries to voluntarily stop using talc in their coloring products. All three agreed to do so, and re-formulated their products.
Follow-up tests conducted on these re-vamped coloring products have shown no additional traces of asbestos.
Although the American manufacturers of crayons have removed talc from their products, what about imported coloring products? Given the legal battles of the definition of asbestos, could asbestos tainted crayons be imported into this country?
China’s industrial record with asbestos is very poor. In a 2002 study performed on behalf of the Asbestos in Asia Symposium, not one of 12 asbestos product factories surveyed followed asbestos handling guidelines. Given this record, it is a matter of time before crayons tainted with asbestos appear of store shelves.