After tests discovered that millions of Americans' drinking water were contaminated with lead, infrastructure quickly became a hot topic while average Americans looked for new ways to prevent lead contamination. Unfortunately, though, your drinking water might not be the only issue. You could be voluntarily contaminating your food with lead and cadmium and not even realize it. Here&#;s how.

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Although glassware is generally considered safe, your drinking glasses may be contaminated with lead and cadmium metal. These two heavy metals are often added to low-quality glass products to help them melt during the manufacturing process, but they can have adverse effects on your health. Therefore, you should know how to identify lead or cadmium-contaminated products. 

In this guide, we&#;ll help explain why glassware sometimes contains lead and cadmium, how these two metals can affect your health, and how you can quickly spot bad drinking glasses. Use this information to buy safe products and protect your family at home.

What is Lead?

Despite its bad reputation, lead is nothing more than a naturally occurring metal found within the Earth&#;s surface. Yet, unlike iron, aluminum, or gold, even small amounts of lead can leach into our bodies and wreak permanent havoc on our internal systems. What&#;s worse is that it&#;s so easy to find small amounts of lead in our everyday lives.

Lead exists in the soil around us, in the water we use to wash our clothes, and even in the air we breathe&#;mostly as a result of fossil fuels and other chemical processes. For decades, common household products such as gasoline, paint, and even our dishes were laced with lead to help stabilize the compounds. Unfortunately, though, all that lead was seeping into Americans&#; nervous systems.

Today, the OSHA and EPA have worked hard to reduce the amount of lead in our everyday consumer goods, but you still have to be careful to avoid it in both imported and antique products.

Is Lead Glass Safe?

You likely won&#;t show signs of acute lead poisoning unless you&#;ve been exposed to a high level of lead in a short amount of time. If you have, though, you may experience sudden:

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 Fatigue and physical weakness

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 Headaches

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 Tingling sensations

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 Abdominal pain and constipation

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 Loss of appetite

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 Irritability and moodiness

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 Short-term memory loss

Unfortunately, though, most victims don&#;t show signs of lead poisoning until months or even years of exposure have passed. This is what makes lead poisoning so insidious. You could be slowly poisoning yourself over many months without even realizing it and, by the time you do realize it, the damage could be permanent.

Long-term lead exposure can cause nerve damage, permanent memory loss, intellectual disabilities in children, and even miscarriages and death. Therefore, it&#;s crucial that you inspect your glassware for lead before it affects your health.

What is Cadmium

Like lead, cadmium is another naturally occurring metal found within the Earth&#;s surface. It has a soft, whitish-blue tone and is commonly found alongside zinc ore. Today, it&#;s commonly used in jewelry and accessories, rechargeable batteries, and other industrial products and is sometimes used as a coating for electronics, solar panels, plastics, and dyes, and pigments.  

Although it&#;s less well-known than lead, cadmium is also a highly toxic heavy metal. Unfortunately, it&#;s far more commonly used in everyday products&#;from electronics to cookware and kitchen utensils.

Is Cadmium Glass Safe?

Just as lead takes a while to accumulate in the body, cadmium poisoning doesn&#;t happen overnight. However, once enough toxins have built up, you can suffer equally severe symptoms that persist for years or even a lifetime. These symptoms include:

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 Kidney disease

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 Loss of bone mass

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 Nerve damage

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 Cardiovascular weakness

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 Cancer

Your body can process cadmium and remove it through the urinary system, but it takes time to completely eliminate the heavy metal. During that time, cadmium continues to wreak havoc as it circulates through your blood, liver, and kidneys.

Lead and Cadmium Used in Drinking Glasses

Although lead and cadmium have been used for decades in industrial processes, it wasn&#;t clear just how common these two metals are in common kitchenware&#;especially drinking glasses. However, in a study completed at the University of Plymouth, researchers discovered that roughly 70% of all drinking vessels contained traces of lead and cadmium.

Although not all of those drinking glasses contained dangerous amounts of lead and cadmium, the sheer volume of glasses that contained heavy metals is noteworthy. Furthermore, some of the tested glassware proved to have hundreds and even thousands of times more lead than what the EPA deems safe for human use.

Under current regulations set by the US Office of Environmental Health and Hazard Assessment, any lead concentration higher than 200 parts per million is too high for human consumption. This means that some drinking vessels had as much as 400,000 parts lead for every 1,000,000 parts. At this concentration, you and your family would surely be at risk for lead poisoning.

So, if the average person knows that lead and cadmium are toxic in high volumes, why do manufacturers continue producing drinking vessels with such high heavy metal concentrations? It comes down to cutting costs and improving the overall look of their products.

When manufacturers mix lead with glass, it oxidizes and helps the glass melt at a lower temperature. The glass is then easier to manipulate and bend into an aesthetic shape without having to heat it for longer periods. Additionally, many decorative drinking glasses are coated with a lead or cadmium-based enamel that, if scratched, flakes off, leaving lead and cadmium in your drink.

Lead and Cadmium-Free Drinking Glasses

If you are concerned about your family&#;s health, rest assured that not all drinking glasses contain lead. While the University of Plymouth study does highlight just how common lead and cadmium are in drinking vessels, you can avoid contaminating your beverages by purchasing higher-quality lead-free glasses.

There are plenty of lead and cadmium-free drinking vessels available on the market if you know how to look for them. Before you start shopping, though, take a moment to inspect your own glasses. If they&#;re already lead and cadmium-free, there&#;s no point replacing them. Follow our guidelines in the next section to figure out if your glasses are lead-free.

Buy our high-quality, lead and cadmium free, European made glassware products. Take care of your family.

Click here to see our test results.

How to Tell if a Drinking Glass Contains Lead

First and foremost, if you are not drinking from crystal, antique glassware, or decorative glass, your glassware is most likely lead-free. However, it doesn&#;t hurt to check. Start by picking up a glass and feel the weight in your hand. Lead glass is typically much heavier than lead-free glass due to the higher metal content in the crystals.

After feeling the weight of the glass in your hand, tap the side of the glass with either your fingernail or the tongs of a fork. If it makes a gentle clink, your glassware is most likely safe. However, if it makes a long ring, it may contain heavy metals. The longer the ring goes on, the more lead or cadmium your drinkware contains.

Another way to tell if your drinkware is lead-free is to hold it up to the light. Standard glassware is better at refracting light, meaning you should be able to see a prism of light breaking into a rainbow. If you struggle to make a rainbow no matter how you hold the glass, it could contain lead.

If you are still unsure, you can test your glassware by leaving a cup of distilled white vinegar in one of your drinking glasses overnight. Because vinegar is naturally acidic, the lead will quickly dissolve into the vinegar and you can test it after 12 hours for signs of contamination. Lead test kits are cheap and easy to find at most hardware stores.

Contact us to discuss your requirements of China Drinking Glasses Company. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.

Is it Safe to Drink from Antique Glassware?

As beautiful as your inherited glassware might be, your great-grandmother&#;s set of stemware could be contaminated with high levels of cadmium and lead. Products produced prior to the s weren&#;t subjected to the same stringent tests and regulations as today so lead and cadmium were likely both added during the production process.

If you&#;re attached to your antique drinking glasses, we recommend testing them for lead before using them and, if they test positive, only keep them as decoration. Using them as drinkware could put your and your family&#;s health at risk.

Are Drinking Glasses from China Safe?

Chinese products are often subject to a lot of skepticism &#; and rightly so. Over the years, China built a reputation of having low quality products and especially with kitchenware, drew lots of criticism over the safety of the products that they were exporting to the US. After years and years of bad experiences by consumers, there has been a general pull away from Chinese-made products and more focus on European-made products instead because of their well-known and trusted manufacturing process. But of course knowing where the glass is from isn&#;t enough, so, how do we know what glasses are really safe?

Beyond checking every glass for lead and cadmium, you can follow a few standard rules to avoid low-quality products:

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 Only buy glassware from a reputable store.

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 Check the company&#;s testing documents online and look for lead-free and cadmium-free labels on the packaging

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 Look for other labels warning you not to consume food or beverages from the glassware such as;

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 Decorative

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 Not for Food Use

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 Toxic

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 Lead-Based Glaze

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 Glaze Contains Lead

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 Food Use May Cause Contamination

If you live in California, you can also look for a mandatory lead warning. Under California Proposition 65, manufacturers must label goods if they contain lead above FDA-approved levels. This warning reads as follows:

&#;WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including lead, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.&#;

Is it Possible to Find Lead and Cadmium-Free Crystal?

For nearly all of history, crystal glass has been produced using a mix of lead and cadmium. By adding these two heavy metals during the manufacturing stage, crystal makers were able to create strong and beautiful glass with intricate designs. However, as the general public has learned just how dangerous lead and cadmium can be, it&#;s left many wondering if they can still safely use crystal glass.

Fortunately, modern manufacturers have devised a unique way to make high-quality crystal glass without polluting it with toxic heavy metals. Instead, they add a mixture of potassium oxide, barium oxide, and zinc oxide. Although this process still requires added metals, potassium, barium, and zinc are all safe for human use.

Nonetheless, always be sure to check the manufacturer&#;s webpage the next time you&#;re shopping for expensive crystal drinkware. Don&#;t let your posh taste destroy your health.

What is the Safest Glass to Drink From?

Although it&#;s hard to know exactly what goes into the manufacturing process, the safest drinking glasses are those produced by well-known, well-respected, and well-established glassware companies. Any glassware company worth its reputation has allowed their products to undergo rigorous testing for lead and cadmium to guarantee their customer&#;s safety.

Click here to buy our high-quality, lead and cadmium free, European made glassware products. Take care of your family.

Click here to see our test results.

Although no company readily advertises that their products contain dangerous levels of heavy metals, recent research has shown that a majority of drinking vessels contain trace amounts of lead and cadmium. Protect your and your family&#;s health by inspecting your drinking vessels and investing in guaranteed lead/cadmium-free products. It&#;s not worth it to save a few dollars on glassware and put your health at risk. If you take the risk with your health, you could suffer life-long consequences.

The Differences Between Chinese and USA-Made Glass

January 14 , by Adam Ehlers, 5 min reading time

There are a lot of options for consumers looking to purchase laboratory glassware, and for certain products, you must look more closely than others. One of the most frequently asked questions is about the origin of the glass part in question, is it USA-made or imported? 

Imported Glass or Domestic - What's Better?

There are a lot of options for consumers looking to purchase laboratory glassware, and for certain products, you must look more closely than others. One of the most frequently asked questions is about the origin of the glass part in question, is it USA-made or imported? We will take an example part, one that is the hub of the short path distillation process, the distillation head. Below are two images of distillation heads, one made in China (left) and one made in the USA (right). In the end, both of these standard short path heads will accomplish the same goal, right? To a certain extent yes, we as a company have experimented with countless different short path heads over the years, and the basic chemistry of fractional distillation always works out. Your boiling flask will always heat up and your vacuum pump will always achieve a level of vacuum where the botanical compounds boil off and recondense somewhere else within the system. You may be thinking, why would I buy a USA-made glass part if the imported part will do the same job for 1/4 of the price? Let me share some instances that may shed light on that question.

 

 

After joining the BVV team years ago, I was tasked with learning more about short path distillation systems. The distillation head is the most crucial piece within the system, so I started by looking into different shapes and sizes. After receiving a few samples from different suppliers, I got to running our short path system in house and recording data on the different parts.

What Have We Learned About Imported Glass?

Some common themes that I noticed are the imported glass parts seemed like they were designed by a guy in a dark room with one eye closed. This has nothing to do with the workmanship, but the actual design of lengths and diameters of tubing used. This made the run more time consuming and labor-intensive. It is apparent that the people making these items are looking at a picture and trying to replicate an item rather than designing a part with the process in mind.

Looking at the pictures above, you can clearly see that the extended tube on the right side of each picture is a different diameter. This diameter just so happens to affect the run time based on the vacuum pulling through the tube. Other design flaws in this specific instance included length of condenser and glass thickness. The extended condenser required higher temperatures from the circulator so the oil would not clog, but the temperatures got so high that the standard GL14 barbs would start to melt. The thickness of glass in certain points was unable to hold strong under vacuum pressure and high temperatures, specifically in the Vigreux where my part broke. This leads to another point, craftsmanship.

The other major downside to imported glassware is cheaper materials used. Being overseas, suppliers have less direct communication with the customer and do not feel the same responsibility to help as much as they can. As I mentioned, my Vigreux on one head cracked during the run, causing the vacuum jacket to lose its insulating capacity.

Other things that can be traced to cheaper materials are the greased ground joints not holding as high of vacuum, and the glass tubing having blemishes such as bubbles in the glass. When ground joints are welded to a tube of glass, there is high heat involved to make the two sides melt together. If this is done too close to a ground joint or the ground joint itself is very thin it can become deformed and not create a perfect seal after adding grease. I did not have any bubbles in this round of testing, but I have encountered them many times over the years. They usually occur in a weld where two pieces of glass are joined, and they can structurally compromise the part especially at high temperatures and pressures.

Some Imported Parts Are Useful

Imported glass is not always useless, as there are plenty of things that are made properly and function just as well as USA-made parts. Thousands of rotary evaporators come out of China every year, and as far as the glass goes it does the same job as USA-made or German-made rotovaps. For general purposes, beakers and flasks that come out of China are just as useful as &#;higher quality&#; glass products (keep in mind many parts show up crushed during international shipping). Be sure not to discount a product solely on the fact that it is imported, but dig a little deeper including contacting the manufacturer or looking at reviews.

It may seem like I gave some mixed opinions on if imported glass will ultimately work or not, and a lot of it is up to personal opinions. Buying imported glass through an American company seems to be the best way to handle imported glass if you choose to go that way. It is inspected for damage before shipping to you, and you don&#;t need to wait 3-4 weeks in transit. If the part arrives broken, it is much easier to file a claim with a domestic company rather than some random manufacturer that can be found on Alibaba.

What's the Verdict?

USA-made glass can have blemishes and deformations as well, and it is the same process to file a claim as long as you are buying from a domestic company. We have seen over the years that USA-made glass is manufactured to a higher quality standard in general, and there are fewer bad apples to weed out.

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