Toxics in Consumer Products
Landing page for Toxics in Consumer Products (XRF) projects.
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Related to Policy Area
Mercury in Fish and Human Hair
Eliminating Lead in Paint
Childhood exposure to lead in paint remains a serious problem in developing countries.
Lead Paint Elimination At-A-Glance
Lead paint is one of the most widespread sources of lead exposure today. There are no safe levels of lead exposure for children and increasing evidence shows that even low levels of lead exposure are harmful for adults.
Small Scale Strategic Projects
IPEN has undertaken three influential projects to build the capacity of nongovernmental (NGOs) in developing countries and countries in economic transition to engage in toxic pollution and heavy metals (mercury) elimination issues.
Waste Incineration & Toxics in Eggs
IPEN Global Egg Sampling Project:
Since 2005, IPEN has been carrying out sampling projects in countries around the world to test for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and other toxic chemicals.
Nanotechnology
The term 'nanotechnology' describes materials, systems and processes that exist or operate at the extremely small scale of a few hundred nanometres or less. To put a nanometre in context: a strand of DNA is 2.5nm wide, a red blood cell is 7,000 nm and a human hair is 80,000 nm wide.
Pesticides
Pesticides, chemical preparations for destroying plant, fungal, or animal pests,
Heavy Metals
Heavy metals are a loosely defined subset of elements with metallic properties and relatively high densities or relative atomic weights, some of which are dangerous to health and / or the environment.
IPEN's work on heavy metals currently focuses on lead (specifically, eliminating lead from paint) and mercury (including sampling of mercury in fish and human hair and work on the international mercury treaty), although IPEN has also produced data about arsenic and cadmium via product testing with a x-ray fluorescence machine.
What Are POPs?
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are a class of highly hazardous chemical pollutants that are recognized as a serious, global threat to human health and to ecosystems. POPs are substances that specifically:
Industrial Chemicals
Industrial chemicals are chemicals that are developed for use in the industrial processing of chemicals. Some industrial chemicals are only used in industrial production processes while many others are used as ingredients in the commercial products that appear in consumer markets.