You have built the house of your dreams, using the best materials possible and now you want to paint the living room a vivid shade of yellow. That colour can become the bane of your life as you might end up with a paint that has a high level of lead — a toxin especially dangerous for children.

Lead is used in paints primarily to impart colour. It is also added to make paints more durable and corrosion resistant as well as for speed drying. A recent study has found that most of the popular brands of paint in India have levels of lead much above that specified by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

The New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) tested 25 samples of popular enamel paints and found that 72 per cent of the samples had lead content much higher than the BIS limit. The brands tested were Apcolite (Asian Paints), Nerolac (Kansai Nerolac Paints), Luxol (Berger Paints India), Superlac (Shalimar Paints) and Dulux (ICI India).

Lead was found in 23 of the 25 samples tested; 72 per cent of the samples contained much higher levels of lead than the 1,000ppm (part per million) limit specified by the BIS. The highest lead content was found in the deep orange paint of Shalimar’s Superlac brand — 185 times more than the BIS limit. The golden yellow colour of Berger’s Luxol had a staggering 162,559-ppm lead count — 163 times the BIS limit and 271 times the US paints limit. Only the white shades of Asian Paints and Nerolac conformed to the standards. All the samples of Dulux, however, had lead content much below the specified limit.

The CSE sent its study results to the paint companies, asking if they had any plans to decrease lead content in paints. Asian Paints and Nerolac wrote back saying that they were in the process of making changes. Recently, CSE again tested samples from each of the five major paint companies. It found that lead content had decreased in the samples of Asian Paints and Nerolac, but the samples of Berger and Shalimar still had unacceptably high levels of lead.

“Lead-based materials are normally used as dryers or as pigments in paints,” says Hemant Somani, head of marketing, ICI India Limited. “ICI uses other metal dryers or organic pigments, which are not harmful, to replace lead-based additives,” he explains.

Most developed countries have laws to regulate the levels of lead in paints. The US regulates lead content in paint through its independent agency Consumer Product Safety Commission. The European Union makes it mandatory for paints that contain more than 0.15 per cent lead to declare it on their labels and advise that such paints should not be used on surfaces that can be chewed or sucked by children. “Unfortunately Indian paints do not state the potential hazards of lead on the product label; neither do they list the quantity of lead or other components in the product,” says M.S. Kamath, general secretary of the Mumbai-based the Consumer Guidance Society of India.

Besides, there is no mandatory standard for lead levels in Indian paints. “The standards set by the BIS are recommendations. So a paint company cannot be hauled up for not following the BIS standards,” explains Kamath. “The maximum one can do is file a public interest litigation (PIL),” he says. But he feels that more studies are needed to prove conclusively that the presence of lead can have toxic effects. This would substantiate the case in a court of law.

How can a person be exposed to lead poisoning from wall paints? “Wall paints containing lead peel off over a period of time. Sometimes repainting or scrubbing off old paints produces paint dust containing lead particles. These are inhaled and the lead dust is absorbed by our respiratory system,” says Thuppil Venkatesh, principal advisor, the Quality Council of India (QCI), New Delhi.

The National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning in India (NRCLPI) has taken up several projects, supported by the QCI, in which lead content in the blood of children across the country is studied. The results show that the levels are very high — sometimes going beyond 30 micrograms in 100ml of blood — owing to lead absorption from various sources, including paint dust.

“Lead does not spare any person or any organ in an individual. In children, lead affects the IQ as it hampers brain functioning. In adults, lead causes neurological problems in addition to bone and kidney diseases. Muscular weakness is another major problem,” says Venkatesh. “Lead remains in the bones for a long period. It primarily causes anaemia, deafness, reading disabilities and disturbed cognitive/psychological functions.”

The horrors of lead poisoning do not end here. “Pregnant women are most vulnerable to lead poisoning. There is no placental barrier and lead freely goes into the foetus during pregnancy,” says Prashant Rajankar, senior programme officer, chemicals and health, at the New Delhi-based non governmental organisation Toxics Link.

One reason manufacturers are loath to replace lead with organic pigments is the cost. “Non lead-based organic pigments are costlier,” points out Somani. “There are a few manufacturers who have started marketing lead-free paints. However, this may not be possible for all the manufacturers as the components and the cost involved will be substantially higher. As a consequence, the selling prices also will be higher,” says Harnish D. Juthani, vice-president, the Indian Paints Association, a body that represents both the organised sector and the small-scale sector in the paint industry.

The companies that took a risk on lead-free paints have found that there are takers for this costlier product. “The response has been very encouraging. We are getting a lot of queries on lead-free paints and its benefits. To educate consumers, we have also started an advertising campaign, highlighting the adverse effects of lead on humans. We have also introduced a lead-free logo to identify eco-friendly products, which is displayed on all the decorative products of the company,” says Anuj Jain, vice-president, marketing and sales, Kansai Nerolac Paints Ltd.

If the customer says no to lead-based paints, manufacturers would be forced to bring out lead-free products. Wall paints are definitely not the only source of lead; but by ensuring the use of lead-free paints we can eliminate one major source of lead poisoning. So say yes to colours but no to lead.