Women's plastic handbags, chew toys for cats and tennis balls for dogs are all among the common consumer products found to have toxic chemicals and lead as per recent tests conducted by some nonprofit environmental group.

!5,000 test results on more than 5,000 household items have been added to the online database of the Ecology Center, a group based in Michigan.

Independent toxicity experts have shown uncertainty towards the risk of health hazards by the mere presence of a toxic chemical in some objects. The products were rated in an ascending order of the presence of toxic chemicals like lead, mercury, arsenic and other such harmful chemicals, which pose a threat to human and animal health.

The database was enhanced due to public demand to know more about all types of household and common use products.

Many health experts still say that there is not much significance of finding lead in a women's handbag since it had very little chance of being found in a child's stomach.

Some manufacturers said that the actual exposure to the chemical has not been taken into account.

Yet Charlotte Brody, the national field director for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a Washington group that lobbies for more regulation of toxic chemical manufacturers, said it was useful for the public to have the information.