01 / HMEstablished program
Heavy metals
Trace the evidence. Understand the standard. Find the certification pathway.
INSTITUTE OF CONTAMINANT STANDARDS
Small things.
Extraordinary
standards.
What we cannot see still matters. We connect contaminant research, independent standards, and certification—so evidence can become action.
LOOK CLOSER.Evidence is in the details.
RESEARCH. STANDARDS. REAL-WORLD CONFIDENCE.The Institute of Contaminant Standards
THE ICS CERTIFICATION PORTAL
Your certifications.
One place.
One account for your brand, products, laboratory evidence, and certification journey. Start with Heavy Metal Tested & Certified. PFAS and microplastics programs are in development.
OUR PURPOSE
Trust is stronger when
you can trace it.
Contaminant evidence is only useful when its sources, meaning, and limits are clear. ICS brings independent research indexes, certification programs, and shared evidence infrastructure under one institutional framework.
About the Institute01 / THE ICS NETWORK
Full network directoryConnected by purpose.
Defined by their role.
Explore the evidence, find a certification program, or follow a laboratory record to its source.
Contaminant indexes & certification
THREE AREAS OF FOCUS02 / MPIn development
Microplastics
A dedicated evidence index and a distinct certification program for microplastics.
03 / PFIn development
PFAS
A public PFAS evidence index, with a certification pathway in development.
Shared infrastructure
CONNECTING EVIDENCE TO ACTIONEVIDENCE VERIFICATION
TECRID
A persistent identifier for versioned laboratory evidence. Follow the record, its provenance, and its findings.
Explore TECRIDSOURCING · DEMO & PILOT
Verified Lot Exchange
Connect ingredient sourcing with lot-level evidence. Explore suppliers, products, and supporting documentation.
Explore VLE.exchangeEach index and certification program has its own remit. Programs marked “in development” are not presented as active certification services.
THE PUBLIC EVIDENCE BASE
Explore the evidence atlasA foundation you can inspect.
The Heavy Metal Index literature corpus supports independent research. These stewardship counts describe the evidence base, not certification outcomes.
- 2,547
- Peer-reviewed studies
- 3,066
- Source records
- 187
- Jurisdictions represented
- 3,041
- Sources with a DOI
Published feed snapshot: . Inspect the source library ↗
02 / THE GOVERNANCE MODEL
A connected network.
Clear boundaries.
ICS sets the rules for how evidence is used, how standards change, and who is accountable for a certification decision.
Explore our governanceEvidence stays independent.
Public indexes describe the literature. A published finding is not a certification decision.
Standards stay accountable.
Certification programs define requirements, review evidence, and control the use of their marks.
Changes stay traceable.
Versioned records, visible methods, and governance policies make decisions open to scrutiny.
03 / FROM THE INSTITUTE
All publicationsThe thinking behind
the standards.
Contaminants in baby wipes
What has been measured in wet wipes for preservatives, fragrance allergens, phthalates, PFAS, microfibers, and heavy metals, on each source's own basis, and why a concentration in a wipe is not yet a dose to an infant.
ICS-ER-2026-001↗Why heavy-metal evidence requires an independent public index
Why literature evidence must remain publicly traceable and structurally separate from certification decisions.
ICS-IA-2026-001↗From evidence to threshold
A governance model for keeping descriptive occurrence evidence distinct from normative certification limits.
ICS-IA-2026-002↗Standards as living records
Why an auditable standard needs stable editions, explicit effective dates, durable superseded records, and certificates that resolve to the rule in force.
ICS-IA-2026-003↗A number without a basis is not a comparable result
How product form, edible portion, preparation, moisture, units, and sampling identity determine what an elemental result actually means.
ICS-IA-2026-004↗Analyte identity is not a footnote
Why total-element results, chemical species, operational fractions, and method-defined analytes must remain distinct in evidence and standards.
ICS-IA-2026-005↗FIND YOUR STARTING POINT