New EU regulation restricting lead in jewelry. What about lampwork glass?

[noora]

A new EU regulation restricts the use of lead in jewelry. They have a few exceptions, for example natural stones that naturally contain lead, crystal glass, and enamels.

But what about lampwork soda lime glass? Strictly speaking it is neither crystal glass nor enamel, but if it contains lead it's far less than lead crystal. The main reason for the exception for crystal glass and enamels is that it hasn't been shown that these actually release lead even though the lead content is high. The same should apply for lampwork glass that contains lead for the colours (as some do), but that isn't clearly stated in the regulation I even found the appendix they refer to about the definition of crystal glass, but that didn't help me. I hope the manufacturers and distributors will clear this up eventually.

I find very little information about the whole thing in general. I just happened to come across a notice about the regulation at the Swedish Chemicals Agency's web page, but I haven't heard about it from any other source and few mention it if you google it. For us bead stores and jewelry makers this is a rather big thing after all. The restriction applies only for jewelry (or beads and findings) that you bring to the market after October 2013, so jewelry makers have nearly a year to figure this out. But if you sell beads now and your customers make jewelry out of them that they mean to sell, they should be aware that any jewelry they make after October 2013 must be lead free (apart from the exceptions for stones and crystal glass).

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that we get a regulation for lead. I just wish it had been a bit clearer on some points.

Here's the regulation if you want to read it, it's the third page that's interesting unless you want the whole background story:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:252:0004:0006:EN:PDF

[Redhotsal]

This is a really interesting topic to me as a customer was recently asking if my glass was lead free. It's not an easy one to answer. I think most of the soft glass manufacturers - Effetre, CIM and so on will say that their glass is now lead free, but there are a couple of colours - for example Rubino Oro - which will possibly have lead content if reduced. The other reducers - Double Helix and so on, also probably have some nasties which are produced when reduced.
I found quite a good thread on LE which talks about lead in glass: http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143463. In a nutshell - I reckon if you stick with "normal" glass you're fine, but there is almost certainly some nastiness in those lovely shiny surfaces produced when we reduce glass. I don't even know if it's lead, silver or something else.
I don't know the answer - and I suspect that because it's a relatively new regulation no one has considered the implications for glass beads........yet.
I think this is a very important issue that we should be considering.

[Kalorlo]

Double Helix have info in their FAQ about it: http://www.doublehelixglassworks.com/FAQ.aspx

Is there lead in your glass?
We do not use lead in any of our glass compositions, and have recently had analysis done to test our colors for lead. All of our colors have practically zero lead content, except Gaia, which has slightly more than the amount that qualifies as "lead free", but still only a tiny fraction of the amount that is in "lead glass". Gaia is made from crushed Effetre Dark Emerald Green #591030. Kronos is made from Vetrofond Cobalt # 791060. Nyx and Olympia Rain are made from Effetre Clear #591004. These four colors predate the development our our proprietory custom batch. We have also developed Triton, Psyche, Aion2, and Oxalis as alternatives to the older cullet based colors. In all of our colors made from raw batch, we choose every ingredient that goes into them with the intent of avoiding any materials that are toxic to ourselves, our customers or the environment. We do not use cadmium, selenium, arsenic, antimony or chromium in any of our stock production colors, all of which are are common in other glass compositions.

Lead Analysis Report

Sample Description: Total Lead (ug/g)
------------------------ ---------------------

Psyche <10.0
Kalypso 10.0
Nyx <10.0
Helios <10.0
Aether 14.0
Terranova 2 <10.0
Kronos 2 54.5
Terra 2 <10.0
Triton 10.0
Clio <10.0
Elektra 2 <10.0
Pandora 2 <10.0
Khaos <10.0
Luna 2 <10.0
Aurae <10.0
Aion2 <10.0
Ekho <10.0
Gaia 475

Note: CPSIA permissible limit for lead content is 300ug/g.

[noora]

Thanks for the list, Kalorlo! My local glass dealer confirmed the same, Effetre and DH are lead free except Gaia and that seems to be just below the 0,05% limit. She's still looking into the others that she sells.

Some Bullseye glass contains lead according to their own data sheets. I wonder how much lead they contain. Perhaps I should ask the people at Warm Glass, where I buy most of my Bullseye.

[flame n fuse]

With respect to food safety of bullseye (lead and cadmium), I found this on their website
http://www.bullseyeglass.com/is-bullseye-glass-food-safe.html
maybe this is a start? you could pose the question on the bullseye forum

[noora]

Oh my, that's quite many that contain way more than the allowed 0,05%. I really hope it will go under the same exception as lead crystal glass (which contains much more lead than that) and enamels. Our options for fusing jewelry components will be very limited otherwise Since the limit is a percentage rather than a release rate limit, it won't even help to cap the glass with clear (which is what I do now with the lead bearing Bullseye colours). The lead will still be there even if it can't get out.

[flame n fuse]

Hello Noora
I agree that it doesn't look too good, but page 1 sets the limit at 0.05% of the weight of the individiual part and then says 'unless it can be demonstrated that the rate of lead released does not exceed the limit of 0,05 μg/cm 2 /h (0,05 μg/g/h) - so it seems that there is a way out if glass manufacturers can show that their rates of lead release are lower than this.
It seems as if the legislation is aimed at protecting young children who put things in their mouths, but then doesn't allow for adults who don't!

some of the info on IGSB and LE with respect to BE doesn't seem to match up with the info on the BE website, so I wonder about what they say about the other makers as well
Are you going to contact BE?

[noora]

The release rate is mentioned in the discussion section that explains the reasoning but not in the actual entry 63 to the annex. But perhaps they'll use the discussion section as a guide when questions like this arise, so hopefully glass will be considered okay if someone actually complains to a court 

I sent an e-mail to Warm-Glass, as they're a distributor within EU. In my experience American manufacturers can be a bit "EU regulations? what's that?" if you ask them directly, but as a distributor in EU W-G should be even more interested in figuring this out than I am So I haven't contacted BE yet but I may do that if I can figure out what to ask. I don't think they know any more of how to interpret EU regulations than I do, so it would be to ask about the release rate I guess.

[noora]

Okay, so after reading the regulation for the tenth time or so, I realised that glass is probably included in their definition of "enamels":

"defined as vitrifiable mixtures resulting from the fusion, vitrification or sintering of minerals melted at a temperature of at least 500 °C."

That's a rather odd definition of enamels, but in fact this probably includes all sorts of glass and ceramics. I don't know why they'd have to specify crystal glass separately in that case though, since it is also a product of vitrification at a temperature of at least 500... I've asked the Swedish Chemicals Agency for clarification just to be sure.

W-G passed the question forward to Bullseye and they replied more or less what I expected, that BE glass contains less lead than crystal glass and it would be reasonable that it's excluded from the rule as well. I also got a copy of the MSDS for Bullseye glass that contains lead.

[flame n fuse]

Thank you Noora. I think that the whole regulation is badly written, which creates ambiguity. I can't find any information on the Effetre or Cim websites.

[noora]

Okay, so I asked the Swedish Chemicals Agency who handles these things here in Sweden, and their response was that enamels are a surface application and solid glass beads and similar products are NOT included in the definition. In fact, glass beads are NOT covered by the exceptions according to their interpretation.

Since the regulation limits the presence of lead rather than how much lead is released, glass beads etc made of lead bearing glass (that is not crystal glass) may NOT be used in jewelry brought to the market after October 2013.

That means all of the lead bearing glass from Bullseye will be off limits for lampwork beads and fused glass jewelry     

What a lousy "Christmas present" for us who fuse glass It's just crazy that crystal glass would be excepted but not soda glass, as crystal glass can contain much more lead.

[Steampunkglass]

I'm wondering if the lead crystal glass industry put pressure on the regulators to exempt lead crystal, it's such a large industry and they probably have the resources to throw lots of case studies and scientific papers at them to prove it's safe. 

[noora]

I'm wondering if the lead crystal glass industry put pressure on the regulators to exempt lead crystal, it's such a large industry and they probably have the resources to throw lots of case studies and scientific papers at them to prove it's safe. 

That's what I think too. Swarovski is a big and probably wealthy company...

[flame n fuse]

so should we all make a fuss with our MEP's?

[noora]

Or make a fuss with Bullseye (and any other glass manufacturers who use lead). I'd actually rather have the glass lead free is that's possible. Might be hard with the pinks and purples though :-(