I just purchased some new darts for my dart board, and didn’t notice a warning on the back of the packaging til I got home. Both sets – same manufacturer, different models – say the darts contain lead, to wash hands after using them. One is a brass coated barrel, the other are copper barrels.
Uh, why is there lead in the darts in the first place? If it makes a difference, they are soft tipped. Is this a situation with ALL darts?
Second, how significant is the warning? Is it overreaction that I don’t really need to worry about, or should the risk be taken seriously? Will washing hands after playing a few games of darts really solve the problem?
I haven’t seen your darts but if the external surface is either all brass or all copper I’ve got to think that the lead warning is a cover-your-ass move and a response to a safety law.
Close contact on a daily basis over years with lead and lead products can be a health hazard as the existence of painter’s colic shows. However, thousands of linotype machine operators were subject to handling lead and being close to hot lead for years without such serious problems and painter’s colic wasn’t a rampant problem either.
Just make sure you or your children don’t eat the darts.