I get what daboarder is saying. I get skin reactions to certain metals. Nickel produces a welt in that location touched, and silver doesn't so much cause me a reaction, as I cause IT to oxidise so much faster (in my goth days, my jewellery was platinum, not silver, for this reason). Silver just doesn't last long enough to warrant its use in jewellery for me. Wash and clean and wear a mask if you are filing/sanding (or work outside).
They know what it is, but not what it is for. They remain utterly clueless as to the existence of Anti-perspirant or deodorant. Ah yes, Wargaming conventions. Glad I've given up on those. People whose personal *cloud* could singe the hairs out of your nostrils. To the OP. Nitrile gloves are one of many friends we have for this sort of thing. Dawn dish-soap, warm water and a toothbrush, and use a bucket or large cup, don't use the sink. See https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/allergic-to-infinity.23348/page-2#post-119636 And toss those foam pieces in the trash immediately.
Read the labels. "5% Lead." No info about other components (Bismuth? Antimony?), it could be 0% Tin (not probable, but hey...), so we don't know much... except about Lead. That one is clear. IIRC even USA "ban" was a scare and marketing games (good excuse for price raises beyond the new material cost). It was in the plans, but there was an exception added to the law draft, covering collectable miniatures. Or something like that. For example see http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/33763-non-toxic-alloy/ . I remember reading a better doc, explaining all the history of the law mambo, this one is what I got quickly. What probably is required is proper labelling and more extrict handling (which would explain the other line mentioning "14 years"), specially at the manufacturing side of it (waste management, worker protection, etc). You would be surprised what you can find in MSDS pages... "safe" things that require gloves, I kid you not (trying to remember what artist paint had something like that)... it's a bit mess and things have gone over the top, no grey levels in too many cases (making things worse, it's not the same "a drop kills in minutes, no cure" than "you need to drink 10 litres and wait 10 days without treatment, while feeling pretty bad").
Erm. Where are labels? In blisters I don't remember anything other than the complaint code, the little card is all game related and an infinity logo. I'm not sure about the boxes though. I vaguely remember that lead based stuff is banned in EU. I wash my hands after filing the minis, but it's really likely that you can't avoid breathing some of it in.
No ban on lead in the EU, you're not allowed to put it in children's toys but Infinity isn't aimed at children. GW moved to lead free pewter so they didn't have to ban everyone under the age of 14 from buying their models. Check any of the boxes they all have a ~5% lead content warning.
Yeah, sand has all sorts of warnings on the MSDS sheet for things like skin irritant. I think water would also have an MSDS warning about breathing it, eye irritation, skin irritation, etc. MSDS are practically non-useful anymore.
The card that closes the blister, with the staple. You need new glasses. Or designers need to select better colors and fonts. In same fashion, I thought I was going blind, then compared old paint pot to new one... nope, the damn one is different, and worse. Oh, another fun law covers it, I saw demos (or more like "this law is crapply redacted, see here") that follow the letter of the law and are unreadable and others that don't comply (too small) but are perfectly readable (that is the spirit of the law). For some things, it's banned, like petrol/gasoline (wheel weights? last ones I saw are Zinc), but clearly it's not a full ban (batteries). IMHO it fits more with "scare people, then raise the prices" in the case of miniatures. That seems to be pretty much the USA case.
I think a lot of it was 'these things are so small that toddlers will put them in their mouths anyways'. Plus, the newer, low/no lead alloys are easier to work with. The Pico-Armor stuff (Oddzmial Osmy/O8) is so hard that you need safety glasses to clip off the sprue vents, and they go *piiiiinnnnnnnng* off into oblivion at high speed. It's gotten to the point that you can't buy lead split shot or sinkers in the US anymore, either.
What he said. On the back of this card flap, it is printed in FIVE (5) languages. Spanish, English, French, German and Italian. "Warning: This is not a toy. It contains 5% of lead." etc. It's small print, and the blue isn't the best for reading against orange, but the warning is there, is multilingual and legally probably does CTA. In the 90s, there was a bill PROPOSED in NY state (USA) to outlaw lead in toys. At the time, it looked like there might be a lot of support behind this bill, and this made Ral Partha change to lead-free ("Ralidium" they called it - high tin content, antimony for flow control and bismuth for detail retention instead of lead) and GW also changed to a similar lead-free alloy following that lead (US was a big market) so they wouldn't be pushed out of the market. That bill NEVER passed, but by the time it was voted on, they had already changed their systems to use a new alloy, and changing back wouldn't have been cost effective. You had to be extra careful when clipping the gates/vent lines off castings in this period. If you weren't careful, you could put someone's eye out. Pling! Catch that, I need that bit. Staff and customers in the local games store resorted to clipping in baggies to contain the fragmentation. As noted, there is a ban in a lot of places on lead in "toys". This is why many wargaming miniatures have "this is not a toy" on their labelling (also "Toys" have specific taxation/import duties on them that "scale models" do not, for example.) Our petrol (gasoline) is also lead-free. That said, fishing sinkers still contain lead here and we still have a few lead smelters (the local one, however was closed down a while back and they're still having issues with site cleanup) and a lot of metal miniatures from Europe still contain lead.
Imo lead should be banned. I'd rather be careful while clipping (point the part that goes away flying at the table, it's easy, preferably covered whole by the cutter), than inhale some lead all the time I file. Found the little piece of paper, it's the one I throw away first, always got ignored. Btw they changed the alloy with the new CAD minis (since it has squares on the joints not globes and holes), it's harder, I like it a lot more, easier to work with.
Dust masks, dude. Or surgical masks, take your pick as to whichever is cheaper. I mean, if you're spraying paint, you should be using a mask anyway. Not that lead filings are particularly bio-available in the first place. For that, you need methyl compounds. Dimethylmercury is death on a plate, except Dimethylcadmium is even worse.
Yeah, that's fixable. Dose makes the poison. You will die if you get too much oxygen. Yes, really. Needs to be over 1BAR partial pressure (ie, diving), but oxygen toxicity is nasty. Makes nerve gas look like a pleasant way to die! But too little oxygen is just as bad (and it's amazing how close to Earth-normal 'too little' oxygen is, 2/3 Earth Normal will kill you). See also the running jokes about banning DiHydrogen Monoxide. I mean, it's in everything, and get too much in your lungs and it will kill you. What's DHMO? By it's chemical formula, H2O. Water. Proper gear and knowledge of the risks makes things safe. I'm honestly in more risk of lead toxicity from shooting than I am from cleaning up mold lines without a mask. No, not 'acute lead poisoning' aka gunshots, the primers used in modern firearms use lead azide to light the powder. Which burns into lead oxide.
It would be good to know how toxic exactly this kind of stuff are (along with paints, and airbrushing them).
There's no warning labels, so it's less toxic than the cyanoacrylate you're using to stick your miniatures together with. Certain Vallejo paints are labelled if they contain substances unsuitable for airbrushing.
Yeah, there are more toxic stuff out there, still the original question stands. And I'm not smoking. And living in a city and breathing there. I know, life kills you anyway. Still.
The warnings are on a thing called a Material Safety Data Sheet, which by law are free to download from the product-maker's website. Problem is, there's no sense of scale to those warnings. There are some things where any exposure is too much (Cadmium internally is pretty much the leading candidate there, though Botox and LSD have much lower levels of 'any' than Cadmium). There are others where not getting enough will kill you just as horribly as getting too much (water and oxygen, not to forget the various vitamins and minerals). But the MSDS are good for telling you what the correct protective equipment is. If you don't know how to use it, find someone to teach you face-to-face. Though newer Vallejo paints have gotten all the really nasty stuff out, I still have a lot of older paints that do contain nasties. Bought some 15 years ago. Not going to replace them until I run out or the paint dries up. Chromium and Cadmium are the worst offenders (that's Cr and Cd on the Vallejo labels) Pay attention to those, you need forced-air respirators to spray those. Yes, I mean like a firefighter's air mask. A dust mask or even a standard painter's gas mask with VOC (oil-paint) filters on it won't cut it. Basically, DO NOT SPRAY anything with Cr or Cd on the Contains: label. Don't lick your brushes, either (less dangerous, but still a nasty way to get Cadmium, Chromium, or Lead into you).