Toxicity of Detroitite Agate

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hello-

I have been working with fordite (also known as detroitite or
Detroit Agate) for a little while and have been asked about the
toxicity of the product. The stuff I was asked about is said to have
come from the River Rouge Ford Factory from late 60’s or 70’s. Is
anyone else working with fordite? Does anyone know if it’s toxic? How
do you find out? I’ve seen it used as beads so I just never thought
about it before.

I have additional fordite that I was told came from Dagenham England
in the 70’s and some more fordite that I think may be the Mexico
stuff mentioned in an earlier post. Any help would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks!
Heather Munion
www.NaturallyStonedJewelry.com

2

I’d never heard of “fordite” before, but a Google search shows the
endless inventiveness of the human species!!! It’s awfully bright for
my clientele, but it looks really cool, still. Anyway, as my search
showed me, it’s not agate at all. My first inclination was to say,
“Oh, no, agate isn’t toxic”. It is Auto paint - yes globs of paint,
presumably scaped off the floors and walls of factory paintshops and
very hard. So, even though there is no more lead paint in America,
there is still a lot of others metals and things in paint. Breathing
a lot of it’s dust can’t be a good thing to do. Interesting stuff,
though - it’s a new one on me…

http://www.donivanandmaggiora.com