School holidays! I hope you are enjoying (or at least surviving) them! Seems like a good time to talk about lead in tourist attractions. Our family has taken very few holidays, but when we have I’ve spotted some seriously leaded things. Sometimes I’ve said something, sometimes not. I’m curious if you guys have experienced this too? What have you seen that’s shocked you? I’ll start.
Rotorua’s Paradise Valley Springs. On the walking loop every park guest goes through this repurposed old door that is covered in what appears to be deteriorating lead paint. Check out the alligator patterns! Notice the lack of paint where hands have rubbed it all off. (And then probably gone and eaten snacks or lunch afterwards). 
Auckland’s Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium. An antique printing press table where all the little drawers once held letter pieces made of high-lead alloys. These drawer/shelf units contain high lead dust. There were even some silvery pieces left in some of them. And this was within easy reach of kids. I emailed them about it but never heard back.
Auckland Zoo. There was an old boat set up as a place for kids to play. Boat paints are notoriously toxic. They can be very high in lead since they were exempted from the bans of lead in house paints. And older paints have other toxins that are now banned because of how nasty they were. The paint in this boat was completely deteriorating, at the perfect height for crawling little guys to touch.
Gisborne’s Tairawhiti Museum has a section where a big old ship has been made into a museum. Kids can crawl up ladders covered in shiny brass (brass has lead), wander around corridors flanked in leadlight windows (which constantly shed high-lead dust onto the floor) and even enjoy this leadlight cabinet where the tiniest of babies can touch or lick pure lead if their parents put them down and don’t know any better. I tried to talk to the receptionist about it and was told “people like those old cabinets!”
Have you noticed things like this too? Let’s see! We need to educate these places. Maybe if enough of us say something they won’t write us off.
