In keeping with this week’s theme of what to do with those pesky plastic eggs, I set out to find a worthy project. My enthusiasm was curbed when I came across reports of lead being found in these things.
At the risk of being the antagonist, telling you what not to do with them seems reasonable, albeit not crafty. At least I get to make a bullet list…
If you are like me, you are tired of hearing about toy recalls and the gross failures of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to protect our children; however, I feel it is important to stay updated on the information for my children’s sakes. Recent news on the Thomas the Tank Engine recall settlement, Mattel’s refusal to recall lead-tainted toys, and the impotent CPSC demonstrate that the problem of toy safety and international manufacturing has not gone away.
I have written many posts on the CPSC’s failures. Now, for the second time in a year, the agency will become useless, as it loses its quorum. The CPSC requires three members on the panel; however, only two members are currently holding positions. The extension granted by Congress to operate with only two members expired in January. According to the Washington Post,
Congress has not passed another one, and the Bush administration has not nominated a new chairman who could restore quorum since its last pick, industry lobbyist Michael E. Baroody, withdrew his name in May after protest by Senate Democrats and consumer groups.
Of course, the agency can still oversee voluntary recalls, but they can no longer issue mandatory recalls or impose civil penalties. What a relief…I feel so protected!
It’s no secret: I hate Wal-Mart. Honestly, I have only been inside a Wal-Mart store four times in my life, including buying batteries in Colby, Kansas on a cross-country childhood vacation, and every time I leave the store, I feel disgusted with American consumerism. This company’s initial practice of establishing stores in small communities to drive out “ma and pa” stores has contributed to the homogenizing of American retail. Furthermore,
Over 70% of products on Wal-Mart’s shelves are made in China. The recent string of product recalls shows the dangerous and even deadly consequences of Wal-Mart’s corporate bullying strategy to drive down the cost of products. Suppliers are forced to ship production to places like China where quality and labor standards are far less stringent.
Wal-Mart’s race to the bottom strategy leads to more than just unsafe products - it forces suppliers to cut corners when it comes to their own workers as well (walmartwatch.com).
I don’t care how green Wal-Mart attempts to be when they still sell dangerous products for children. I was shocked to learn that Wal-Mart is still selling, in some states, PVC vinyl backed baby bibs that contain lead despite a recall in Illinois.
The recent recalls of toys for lead contamination has become a major concern for parents. Additional research shows that it is not just lead we parents should be concerned about.
Healthy Legacy, an environmental group of Minnesota, worked in tangent with a few other organizations to test 1,200 children’s toys. The tests were used to detect not just lead, which was found in one third of the tested toys, but four other potential hazards as well; cadmium, arsenic, mercury and chlorine.
Do you ever read the fine print on your vinegar? I certainly did not, until one day I noticed my organic balsamic vinegar had a Proposition 65 warning! In fine print, the label reads:
This product contains lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm.
There’s lead in my vinegar! Sure, I accept there is lead in my children’s toys, but in the vinegar we love on our salads…that’s alarming! According to Napa Valley Naturals, makers of my favorite organic olive oil and balsamic vinegar,
All balsamic and red wine vinegars contain naturally occurring lead. Lead is naturally absorbed by all things that grow in the ground, including the grapes used to make vinegar. Most balsamic and red wine vinegars have lead levels equal to or less than 34 parts per million. An average person would need to consume 1 to 2 cups of balsamic or red wine vinegar per day to reach the Proposition 65 lead level minimum threshold, which includes a 1000-fold safety margin.
This may be true, that the lead level is low in balsamic vinegar, but in combination with all of the other ways my children may be exposed to lead, I am concerned. Also, if lead is naturally absorbed from the soil by plants, wouldn’t all our food contain lead? Why doesn’t my red wine vinegar contain the Proposition 65 warning?
The holidays are behind us, but toy safety continues to dominate parents’ concerns. There have been several recent developments parents should be aware of, as the issue of toy safety has not been resolved. Recalls continue almost daily, especially for lead paint standards violations.
Export Licences [sic] of 600 Toy Makers Revoked
China is cracking down on toy makers in an effort to save the industry. “We have thoroughly inspected all 3,000-plus toy makers for export during the rectification work that began last August,” said State Administration for Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) Deputy Director Pu Changcheng. Changcheng also blamed overseas importers for design flaws and changing standards that created the current recall situation.
Toy Makers Mount Drive to Salvage China’s Safety Reputation
The US Toy Industry Association is attempting to salvage the image of toys made in China, and the toy industry remains committed to making toys in China. They claim there is no realistic alternative to Chinese manufacturing. “Are you going to pay twice as much for a doll because it’s not made in China?” Mr. Shoptaugh, owner of Shoptaugh Games, added. “The thing is you cannot make these products in the United States and have them be competitive on the shelf.”
2007 will go down in history as the year when toy safety was no longer assumed by parents in the United States. Gone are the days when parents blindly selected any toy from the shelf of a big box store and thought their child was protected from lead and other heavy metals. This year has been plagued by recall after recall, and unfortunately, children have been injured by these unsafe toys. The following is a summary of recent news on toy safety to end our year.
On December 19, 2007, the US House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill lowering the allowable lead levels in toys, as well as mandated independent toy testing. Funding for the Consumer Product Safety Commission would also be increased through this bill. The senate will not take action until 2008 on the issue. According to the Daily Grist,
The current draft of the Senate bill would do many of the same things the House-passed version does, but would also allow state attorneys general to sue to enforce federal product-safety laws, protect employees who report safety law violations, increase the civil penalty cap to $100 million, and give industry less time to comply with the lower lead standards…Meanwhile, presidential candidate Barack Obama went even further yesterday by calling for a ban on the import of all toys from China.
I like to browse Ebay for unique, homemade wooden toys and Waldorf dolls. Like Etsy, artisans use Ebay to sell their handy work and reach a broader audience. Recently, recalled toys have been showing up on this online auction marketplace.
The plethora of recalled toys makes it difficult for consumers to know about every unsafe toy identified by the CPSC. During a recent search, KLTV 7 of Jacksonville, Texas found several recalled toys on Ebay. “It’s disturbing that if someone did not know that these items had been recalled that they were being resold,” said Stephanie Carlton, a concerned mother. “It’s a total lack of concern for someone else’s child.” It does make you wonder…what happens to recalled toys once they have been pulled from the shelves?
More bad news about lead: It is in 61% of name brand lipsticks! The $50 billion cosmetic industry largely regulates itself, and the FDA has not set a limit on lead levels in lipstick. Thank goodness we have the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the Environmental Working Group to keep us informed.According to Enviroblog:
One-third of the tested lipsticks exceeded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s limit for lead in
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Sometimes, I am proud to live in the Golden State. If the federal government won’t protect our children, as least California will try. Last month, Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law AB 1108 banning the use of phthalates in children’s products. This week, California Attorney General Jerry Brown sued 20 toy companies for selling toys with “unlawful quantities of lead” under Proposition 65.
Some of the companies being [...]
When I first learned about lead in children’s lunch boxes, I rushed to the hardware store to buy my own Home Lead Test Kit. I was concerned about my daughter’s commercial character backpack (which thankfully we no longer have), and we conducted our own Eco Child’s Play lead testing experiment. The results were negative, but now, I have learned that home lead test kits may not be accurate, thus neither was our experiment’s results reliable.
According to Grist, home lead test kits are not reliable for children’s toys: “The Consumer Product Safety Commission put 104 kits to the test and found that 56 failed to detect lead in toys, while two overachievers warned of the heavy metal where it didn’t exist.” How are consumers supposed to feel safe? My daughter just received a bracelet from the prize box at school, and paranoid eco-mom wants to test it for lead. Is it worth the money to buy a home lead test kit? In light of the evidence that home lead tests are not reliable, the CPSC suggests worried parents send toys off to labs to be tested. Isn’t that the CPSC’s job? Consumer Reports followed the CPSC’s conclusions with their own tests. They report,
Our conclusion, that they can be limited but useful screening tools to identify lead in household products, is different from the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recent announcement that consumers should not use these products to find lead in their homes. Our differences lie not as much in the testing itself as in the interpretation of the data. Here’s how we came to our conclusions and why we believe parents should consider these kits as a helpful tool for screening household products.
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