Does the ink used to print books and newspapers contain lead?

According to the National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers, many years ago some of the red (phloxine red), orange (molybdate orange) and yellow (lead chromate) inks then used in newspapers did indeed contain lead. The newspaper publishers, however, established standards for printing inks around 15 years ago which effectively banned compounds of lead or other heavy metals. Inks with the trade names AdPro® (for letterpress) or AD-LITHO® (for lithographic printing) have no lead or other heavy metals, and newspapers printed with these inks can be safely used as mulch. (Some cyan inks may contain copper, which is an essential trace element. Bedlington Terrier puppies, which often have an inherited inability to metabolize copper, should probably not be raised on colored newspaper for this reason.)

There is, however, one exception. Some of the mass-printed supplements in newspapers (especially those printed on paper other than ordinary newsprint) are produced by a third printing process, gravure. Some of the yellow inks used in the gravure process are still lead-based, so the color supplements should not be burned, used for mulch or otherwise reused.