Small-scale children’s product makers have received a reprieve of sorts: The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recently announced a unanimously-voted one-year stay of enforcement for testing requirements laid out in their Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). You may remember us detailing the CPSIA here on our blog in December and discussing both the validity of new testing–particularly following the massive toy recalls of 2007–and the difficulties the CPSIA would present to small businesses (especially, and ironically, makers of eco-friendly children’s goods!).

The outcry from businesses was due to the strict, expensive testings requirements, the short deadline for getting all products certified, and fears of the heavy fines that would be administered to those who were without certification. For very small-scale manufacturers of things like children’s clothing and toys the challenges would be especially great, with costs from testing quickly eating up the small profits made on products.

With the new stay on the act, manufacturers can forgo testing and certifying to the new standards laid out in the CPSIA, but they must still meet mandatory toy standards and existing lead and phthalate limits. While this delay will give extra time for the CPSC to improve upon the methods of certification and testing and help manufacturers prepare for changes in advance, it does mean that no changes have been made to toy testing standards that have, in the past, resulted in lead-contaminated toys finding their way into homes, and may end up buying manufacturers who use lead-tainted ingredients another year without revision. Click here to read more

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With millions of Americans shopping for toys, we thought this would be a good time to shed some light on the concerns consumers have about LEAD–and other chemicals–in children’s toys. In Part 1 we overview some of the recent events that have resulted in elevated worry over toys and what’s being done to counter the problem, and in Part 2 we outline how you, as a buyer, can use new tools to keep chemicals away from your kids.

In late 2007, following the recall of millions of toys due to high levels of lead, tests found that 35 percent of children’s toys–the vast majority not yet recalled–contained lead in levels higher than that of the federal recall standard for lead paint. With the more than 21 million toys that had been recalled by Mattel, tests done by Mattel itself had found lead in levels up to 200 times the accepted limit.

The recall and the findings set off a veritable snow ball-effect, suddenly lead was being pointed out in a variety of children’s (and adult’s) products–some recalled and some not. Consumers, especially concerned parents, began to question what was really in the toys they gave their children and all-natural wooden toys with naturally-made sealants and paints received a sudden spike in popularity.

In addition to fears about the harmful affects of such large amounts of lead and phthalates on developing bodies, attention began to focus on other potentially dangerous chemicals such as cadmium, chlorine, arsenic, bromine and mercury–things you picture being used in labs but rarely consider laying down in your baby’s crib. Because of the on-everything-and-in-everything nature of child play and the delicate developmental state of young ones, the risks of chemicals in toys is often considered to be much higher than the risk of those chemicals in products used by adults (though we hesitate to believe anyone’s keen on arsenic in their goods).

Thanks to the action of parents and plenty of media focus, however, the government has taken the matter very seriously and in August of this year Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). So what’s the long-named law really about? The CPSIA does a few things: First, it increases the budget of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and, in turn, enables them to impose new testing and documentation requirements for manufacturers. Next, it sets new lower acceptable levels for several substances, including lead. Finally, it lays out new requirements for manufacturers of a wider range of goods and both increases fines and specifies jail time for certain violations. In short, the CPSIA turns a spotlight on toy manufacturers and gets tough on toys. Click here to read more

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