CASE STUDY Lead content in new decorative paints in India Ashok Mohanty • Neha Budhwani • Barun Ghosh • M. Tarafdar • Sanchita Chakravarty Received: 15 November 2012 / Accepted: 12 April 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract The paint industry in India is broadly classified into two categories: organized sector and unorganized sector. Multinational and big Indian companies form the organized sector, whereas the small- and medium-scale industries which produce paints for the local market form the unorganized sector. The present study was undertaken to determine the level of lead in decorative paints in India. A total of 148 paint samples sourced from four organized sector companies and six unorganized sector companies were analyzed for the total lead content. Results of this study reveal that 39 % of the total paints tested (n = 148) contain lead more than 300 ppm, the voluntary limit prescribed by Bureau of Indian Standards, BIS (IS 15489:2011), and 45 % of the tested paints contain lead more than 90 ppm, the US limit. Further analysis of the data indicates that only 5 % of the tested paints manufactured by organized sector companies contain lead more than 300 ppm (n = 91), whereas 93 % of the tested paints manufactured by unorganized sector com- panies contain lead more than 300 ppm (n = 57). Comparison with earlier reported data suggests that while organized sector companies are gradually abandoning the use of lead- based compounds in their paints, the unorganized sector companies are still adding lead- based compounds intentionally in their paints despite the potential health hazards asso- ciated with it. The maximum concentration of lead obtained was 80,350 ppm in one of the paints manufactured by an unorganized sector company. The presence of high concen- tration of lead in yellow and green color paints indicates that color can be a predictor of lead content in decorative paints. Keywords Lead in paints Á Indian paint Á Organized sector Á Unorganized sector A. Mohanty Á N. Budhwani Á B. Ghosh Á S. Chakravarty (&) Analytical Chemistry Division, CSIR-National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur 831007, India e-mail: sanchita@nmlindia.org M. Tarafdar CSIR-National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur 831007, India 123 Environ Dev Sustain DOI 10.1007/s10668-013-9455-z