Warning Out on 4 More Leaded Spray Paints
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| While the four paint products (right) failed the 90 ppm limit, the other four (left) passed, indicating the feasibility of producing paints with no added lead. |
24 April 2025, Quezon City. Paint consumers beware: The EcoWaste Coalition has detected dangerous levels of lead, a toxic chemical banned in paint manufacturing, in an aerosol paint brand being sold in online and physical stores.
As part of its nonstop effort to promote strict compliance to the DENR-issued Chemical Control Order (CCO) banning lead in paints and similar surface coatings, the EcoWaste Coalition procured eight different colors of Yatibay Acrylic Spray Paint and had them screened for lead using an X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analyzer.
While four colors (gold, jade green, post green and canary yellow) passed the 90 parts per million (ppm) limit for lead in paint, the other four (army green, refrigerator green, lemon yellow and Isuzu desert yellow) failed.
As per XRF screening results, the lemon yellow paint contained over 100,000 ppm of lead, while the army green, refrigerator green and Isuzu desert yellow paints had 90,400 ppm, 55,850 ppm and 19,230 ppm, respectively, way beyond the legal limit.
The EcoWaste Coalition had previously detected lead above the 90 ppm limit on two other colors of Yatibay Acrylic Spray Paint, particularly grass green and deep yellow.
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| These Yatibay spray paints were found to contain lead way above the 90 ppm limit, making them illegal to import, distribute and sell. |
Sold for P95 to P100 per 400 mL can, the leaded Yatibay paints were manufactured in 2024, way past the country's phase-out deadline for lead-containing paints. The country of manufacture is not shown on the label.
To recall, the CCO gave manufacturers three years from 2013 to 2016 to remove and replace lead as an ingredient in decorative paints. The ban on lead-containing decorative paints took effect on January 1, 2017.
On the other hand, lead in industrial paints was eliminated after a longer transition period of six years from 2013 to 2019. The ban on lead-containing industrial paints became effective on January 1, 2020.
Lead in paint is a major source of childhood lead exposure, which can harm the brain, the central nervous system and other systems of the human body. Exposure to lead early in life can result in lower intelligence quotient (IQ), inattentiveness, impaired learning ability, conduct disorder, aggression and other behavioral problems.
“There is no safe level of lead exposure,” stated the World Health Organization (WHO), which has listed lead among the “ten chemicals or groups of chemicals of major public health concern."
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| The EcoWaste Coalition calls for the immediate removal of non-compliant lead-containing paints in the market. |
To protect vulnerable populations, especially children, women and workers, against the health-damaging effects of lead exposure, the EcoWaste Coalition is campaigning for strengthened compliance monitoring of the country’s lead paint ban, which won the 2021 Future Policy Award (special category on lead in paint).
Consumers, in particular, are reminded to always insist on their legally protected rights to product information and product safety, and to seek out and only use adequately labeled paints with no added lead.
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