I’ve been looking at cutesy garden lights lately. These are glorified Christmas tree lights with Chinese lantern shades or something that you hang up for parties, or as I hope, in your bedroom for an easy and different reading light to use instead of the 50,000 megawatt fixture that could bake a turkey in under an hour.
I’m afraid to get any of these cheesy little strings of lights. It seems that they all have lead wires under the rubber, as the State of California has helpfully told me. Lead, as we all know, is deadly.
I am much confused. How are these lead-based wires legal for sale? Considering they’re covered, how dangerous are they? Are all Christmas lights like this, or are older ones potentially safe? Are any other electrical systems still using lead? I’d appreciate some help.
Prop 65 warnings show up on a lot of things. Since there is lead in the wires, the manufacturer is required to notify you. But unless you eat them or start nibbling on the cords, I wouldn’t worry about it.
I used to work for a catalog company that sold all sorts of stuff that had Prop 65 warnings. It was explained to me at the time that if anything was manufactured in a facility that had lead the warning had to go on the product. In your example, it’s possible that the manufacturer makes lead solder over HERE (or on the same machine and NOW) and copper wire over THERE (or LATER), hence the warning.
Heh. I take it you’ve never been to California. A while ago a bunch of the nutjobs approved this proposition, which was worded so broadly as to apply to pretty much everything. When restaurants still allowed smoking, every restaurant in the state had a Prop 65 sign, since the restaurant did indeed contain chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer. They may still, for all I know, if the restaurant uses some sort of industrial solvent to clean stuff. In short, you really can’t go anywhere in CA or buy anything other than organic brocoli that doesn’t require a prop 65 warning. Don’t worry about it.