Warning Out on New Lead-Containing Paints Sold Online

4 May 2026, Quezon City. The EcoWaste Coalition warned that lead-containing paints continue to enter the market through e-commerce despite the country’s lead paint ban.

To protect public health, the toxics watchdog group again called for concerted law enforcement measures to uphold the historic ban on paints containing lead as embodied in DENR A.O. 2013-24, or the Chemical Control Order (CCO) for lead and its compounds.

The group’s latest call for action was prompted by its discovery of more paints with lead content exceeding the maximum legal limit of 90 parts per million (ppm), which are being sold online.

According to its most recent test buy, the grass green and silver red variants of LLA Spray Paint contained 28,210 and 2,560 ppm of lead, respectively, as analyzed through portable X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy.

The two products were manufactured on January 29, 2026, way past the phase-out deadlines for lead-containing paints in the Philippines: December 31, 2016, for leaded decorative paints and December 31, 2019, for leaded industrial paints.

The CCO, which won the Future Policy Award in 2021 (special category on lead paint), banned lead in paint manufacturing to protect the people, especially the children, including babies in the womb, who are most vulnerable to the adverse effects of lead exposure.

The World Health Organization has warned, “There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects." Even low levels of exposure during development can cause lifelong and permanent effects, such as lower intelligence quotient (IQ), inattentiveness, learning disabilities, conduct disorder, aggression, and other behavioral issues.

Lead-based paint and the resulting lead-contaminated dust are a major source of lead exposure among children worldwide. To combat this preventable threat to children’s health, the EcoWaste Coalition remains committed to its advocacy toward the rigorous enforcement of the lead paint ban and related regulations.

To address the unlawful entry of lead-containing paints in the Philippines, the EcoWaste Coalition seeks the listing of lead chromates as hazardous chemicals in the Rotterdam Convention to control the global trade of these common lead-based pigments and paints containing them.

References:

https://www.ecowastecoalition.org/leadspraypaints/
https://chemical.emb.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/DAO-2013-24-CCO-Lead.pdf
https://www.who.int/news-room/photo-story/photo-story-detail/10-chemicals-of-public-health-concern