Is there a way that sharpies and its packaging could harm our waterways?
The Sharpie itself is comprised of a plastic body, chemical ink, and wicking material. The packaging includes a printed cardboad backing with a plastic bubble-pack type face. Potential chemical contaminates include those in the perma-marker ink itself, the ink on the cardboard backing, any chemical residues left from the manufacture of the cardboard its self, chemical residues and leaching from the body of the pen, chemical residues and leaching from the plastic packaging front. and I suspose any chemical leaching of the perma-marker wicking material. Physical contaminates include each of these components except the ink; the cardboard itself will decompose. I will guess that your instructor readily recognizes the perma-marker ink itself as a chemical contaminate. What we often fail to realize and have little way of knowing is that a number of colored plastics that are not intended for oral or food use are allowed a fair amount of lead content; several reports a couple of years ago spec
