When parents purchase a product for their child, they shouldn’t have to wonder if there are potentially dangerous chemicals lurking inside of them. Safe children’s products should be the norm here in Canada, and around the world. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Recent product testing found lead and phthalates hiding in common plastic products we wear, use and play with every day, and many of these products are targeted at children. 

Highly toxic lead and cadmium, and hormone-disrupting phthalates were found in several plastic products. These are highly harmful substances linked to brain harms and ADHD, liver damage, reproductive harms and other devastating diseases. 

It’s bad enough to have to worry about being exposed to these chemicals ourselves, but for parents there is the added layer of worry for their children. Children’s clothing, toys and crafts, and gaming headphones were all among the items that tested positive. Even more concerning is that these chemicals readily release onto our hands and can then be ingested when we eat or absorbed through the skin. Two of the products tested with a “wipe test” produced an exposure of roughly five times the allowable daily oral exposure for infants! These types of results are unacceptable.

Toxic Plastic Products To Avoid

Here are the products that were tested, and the alarming results:

This builds on product testing done this spring that found highly-toxic PFAS chemicals coating children’s winter gloves. 11 pairs of children’s and youth gloves were tested from the brands Columbia, Flapjack Kids, Helly Hansen, Hot Paws, Igloo, Kombi, Lolmot, The North Face, Outbound, and Ripzone, and purchased from Canadian Tire, Sport Chek, and Walmart in February of 2024, and 91% (10) contained PFAS, or “forever chemicals.” 

What are the potential health harms of toxics in plastic? 

All of the products tested had high levels of harmful phthalates and 42 per cent contained heavy metals like lead and cadmium. These results make it quite clear that many of the plastic products we are using every day have high levels of harmful chemicals lurking inside of them.  

All the products we looked at contained DEHP that could easily wipe off onto a child’s hands and end up in their mouth. This is particularly concerning considering that the shoe charms and baseball hat contained enough DEHP to result in several times the allowable daily oral exposure (58 µg per day) for infants!

DEHP is a phthalate that, once inside the body, metabolizes into MEHP, which induces apoptosis (cell death) of brain cells. When pregnant women or young children are exposed, it can result in attention deficit and hormone disruption.  

Regulators do not appear to be taking these toxic plastic exposures seriously. This testing clearly demonstrates that touching these products exposes people to high levels of toxic chemicals like DEHP, but when the testing lab contacted Health Canada about its testing results, Health Canada said that touching these products “does not constitute a health risk.”  This ignores the reality that our hands often come in direct contact with our food and mouths, and that infants naturally put these items into their mouths. 

What you can do about toxics in plastic

While these toxic plastics and their harmful additives are often unlabelled, here are a few things that you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones:  

1. Avoid products made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
2. Whenever possible, purchase PFAS-free outerwear, particularly for children 
3. Urge the federal government to immediately regulate toxic chemicals in plastics to better protect children from harmful exposures 

The federal government must address these toxic-laden plastic products and create stricter regulations as soon as possible. The health and safety of people in Canada—especially children—depends on it. As parents are purchasing plastic products this fall for Halloween, the holidays and winter clothing for their children, they shouldn’t have to wonder where these harmful chemicals might be lurking.

People in Canada and around the world want an end to plastics pollution and harms. The upcoming Global Plastics Treaty negotiations in November could help curb this crisis, but Canada can do the right thing  without a treaty. We need the federal government to bring forward a comprehensive regulatory package now to tackle toxic chemicals in plastics, and show the world that it’s serious about our health committed to turning off the toxic tap of plastics.

1. Testing was performed using NIOSH 9100 wipes with distilled water with 6% sebum oil, with exposure data generated using the methodology that 50% of the DEHP from the wipe’s simulated hand contact would be ingested from hand to mouth exposure.
2. Note that Crocs products were not tested in this study, but the popular third-party shoe charms are marketed to be used on Crocs products