You’ll have heard of the Stanley tumbler, the hip, stylish water bottle that has other people tenting out of doors retail outlets or coming into fights to get their arms on one.

They’ve grow to be a manner accent, particularly since Stanley has made use of influencer tradition to focus on ladies and make gross sales of its tumblers skyrocket. The achieve of the bottles has been amplified by means of social media customers.

However social media giveth and social media taketh away. In contemporary weeks, a number of extensively shared posts on TikTok, Instagram, Reddit and X have amplified issues Stanley cups might comprise lead, with one X person calling it “The Leadening.” YouTubers have additionally jumped into the fray. One TikTok video at the subject was once seen just about seven million occasions.

Some Stanley house owners, hoping to test the claims, began to use domestic lead-testing kits, which professionals say aren’t dependable. A sendup of the Stanley cup phenomenon on “Saturday Night time Reside” over the weekend — a comic strip known as “Giant Dumb Cups” — even discussed the lead in passing.

The lead dialogue has popped up on Fb remark sections, as in a single staff with greater than 61,0000 contributors known as “Stanley Cup Hunters + Drops” — for “passionate Stanley Cup fans.”

One particular person wrote, “If we wish to get dressed up our lead cups with a flower straw duvet and a glitter boot and display them off, we could us be!! We all know they’ve lead, you have got advised us. We don’t care!”

So that you could be questioning: Do I’ve to throw my Stanley cup into the hearth? (No. In reality, don’t throw anything else into your hearth.) We now have some solutions for the ones of you who in reality wish to stay alongside of the days and drink water fashionably.

Do Stanley cups comprise lead?

Sure, consistent with the corporate’s site. It says that its “vacuum insulation generation,” which assists in keeping the cup’s contents at a great temperature, makes use of “an business same old pellet to seal the vacuum insulation on the base of our merchandise.” The sealing subject matter, it says, “contains some lead.”

As soon as the bottle is sealed, Stanley mentioned, the world is roofed with a layer of chrome steel, which the corporate says makes the lead “inaccessible to shoppers.”

However is it bad?

No. Virtually veritably, no.

Jack Caravanos, a professor of public well being at New York College who research lead, examined 3 Stanley cup fashions of various sizes on Monday the usage of an X-ray fluorescence detector, which determines the weather of a subject matter.

“There’s a large number of puts the place lead will also be on a cup like that,” Dr. Caravanos mentioned. “It may well be at the inside of, the out of doors, the labels, decals. And, I didn’t in finding lead — form of superficial lead at the floor — in any a part of the cup.”

“I’m an international publicity professional,” he added. “I’ve accomplished a large number of paintings in numerous merchandise and nations. And the risk to human well being is in reality negligible since you’re no longer going to in reality put your mouth anyplace close to that floor, and it’s no longer going to readily dissolve into anything else that may get into you.”

However what concerning the space beneath the stainless-steel?

For that, Dr. Caravanos mentioned he must deconstruct the cup itself — under no circumstances a very easy activity.

“I attempted again and again to pry open the ground cap with more than a few equipment and failed,” he mentioned. “Most likely the lead is getting used to seal the cap closed. Finally, it must additional guarantee the general public that lead subject matter may be very not likely to ever be launched from the cup and be made to be had for ingestion.”

Dr. Caravanos mentioned that at-home lead assessments in the marketplace lately aren’t thought to be dependable — and none of them to be had lately are authorized by means of the Environmental Coverage Company. Although on Tuesday morning, Dr. Caravanos attempted an at-home check on a glass and nonetheless didn’t get a favorable check.

So we’re all excellent, proper?

That the cups use any form of lead first of all confirmed “deficient considering” at the a part of the corporate, Dr. Caravanos mentioned.

“I’m in reality disheartened and form of offended that an organization like this makes use of a recognized poisonous element this is banned in lots of programs for a cup,” he mentioned. “I imply, without a doubt there can have been an alternate.”

A Stanley consultant referred to the reason at the corporate’s site describing the usage of lead within the cups. However in a remark to NBC Information, a consultant mentioned, “Our engineering and provide chain groups are making development on cutting edge, choice fabrics to be used within the sealing procedure.”

Lead, which is regulated by means of the government, continues to be prevalent in america, in particular in paint, cookware and water that travels via lead pipes.

“There are lots of well being results related to lead publicity, corresponding to reproductive toxicity, heart problems,” mentioned Maria Jose Talayero, a public well being researcher at George Washington College. “And the person who I find out about essentially the most is the wear to the apprehensive machine, which ends up in quite a lot of neurological results.”

She added, “Nevertheless it’s a incontrovertible fact that different cups and different producers don’t use lead, so why have it in there within the first position?”