The Shrek glass recall is just another little bit of evidence that sourcing all of your goods from China might not be all that good an idea.

The basic story is that McDonald's had a tie in with the new Shrek movie. You could get a drinking glass with a character on it. Yes, I know, whoopee. They ordered 12 million of these glasses.

Unfortunately, the Chinese suppluier managed to use cadmium based paint to produce the glasses. While cadmium based paint has its place (keeping the nuts and bolts on airplanes for example) drinking glasses aren't one of them.

For cadmium is poisonous to humans.

Not that the amount of cadmium in the McDonald's recall would actually cause any harm….nmust too trivial an amount for that. But it is above legal guidelines and so we have this Shrek glass recall.