If you’re putting up Christmas decorations this weekend, you might want to check the label to see if your lights contain lead. “The risk is going to be very low,” says
Tim Banwell, Environmental Health Director with the Rock County health department. “You wouldn’t want to put them in a place where children could be touching them with hands and having contact with them. Some of the lead could come off the plastic and the wires, and they could ingest it.”
Banwell says lead paint on older homes is a bigger hazard than the lead in lights. Still, he says choose lights without lead if you have small children. After coming into contact with those types of lights, be sure to wash your hands.
WCLO’s Beth Wheelock submitted this report
