I call bullshit.

As a consumer, I pay a higher price for European toys. I also pay a higher price for American-made toys. And with this type of legislation in effect, all that will be left are the cheaply regulated Asian-imported models (that will also go up in price as competition dwindles). As poster #11 pointed out, I won’t even have the OPTION of buying a Selecta toy.

Kathleen has a new post up at fashion-incubator today which talks about how this is bad for large manufacturers too. And there is good information in the forums.

On the one hand, I don’t want my kids to be inadvertently poisoned, so I would like some safeguard.

On the other hand, that safeguard shouldn’t drive smaller companies out of business.

Perhaps a way to reduce the cost of the test is in order. If nothing else, a “safety tax” on toys with this stamp (though I’m not a fan of more taxes in general) could distribute the cost a bit better.

Or maybe it could be an opt-in kind of system: you can certify your toy as safe, or you can “buyer beware” the whole thing. This way, if you know the small producer is trustworthy, you can take the risk, but if you’re really paranoid about poisoning your kid, you can just stick with the big codified multinationals…

Each color needs the full suite of testing performed even though they are identical except for the pigment. Even though I have certificates on file that these color pigments are safe for cosmetics (each batch is tested), I have to test them again.

Also, we’ve got a strange scenario now where a product can be FDA approved for contact with food but be illegal to sell for use by children. This is because the FDA permits certain phthalates while CPSIA bans them.

On the one side, I am frustrated because there was zero thought given to the negative effect on small business. But, I have also experienced that a lot of people in the ‘big’ toy business really don’t care about the toxic chemicals in children’s items and this is the first step in correcting that.

I don’t think there was a lot of thought and review put into this. The legislation is very reactive and it shows in the language. There are a number of standards which the law requires ‘only if the CPSC finds it feasible’…ie. we put this in as a pipe dream without checking with any scientists to see if it was actually possible.

On the plus side, they deferred to the existing voluntary standard by making it the new requirement. Better than reinventing the wheel. The ASTM process is far superior to the EU’s way of coming up with standards IMHO. The only downside there is that the government required standard is actually not a part of the public record. It is a private document which you must pay to view. The EU does things the same way. Why must I be required to pay money to read the public law?

This legislation is deeply flawed so I hope it will be revisited soon (though I doubt it). It will generate large amounts of paperwork fraud. If I test my toy and it passes, I get my ‘papers’. Then I can switch suppliers for a raw material and my certification still is valid. The odds of getting busted are still pretty low. They did increase the penalties to be significant, but I fear they will just put small guys, who were honestly overwhelmed by the rules, out of business. Big companies will fight the fines with armies of lawyers or just suck it up as the cost of doing business.

The alternative is to test every batch of every chemical and material all the way down the supply chain. That will solve the problem but it will increase toy prices in the same way that there is a massive price difference between baby formula and powdered milk. One is a food, the other a pharmaceutical.

@#7 EH, regarding ‘regulatory capture’, you hit the nail on the head. In Europe regulation is a huge jobs program that stifles innovation. We have to send our samples to the EU for testing because certain tests must be performed by citizens of the EU. Hmmm?

The testing firms are going to make a killing on this. I know that the CPSC is considering upping the ante by requiring regularly scheduled repeated testing. I don’t know what I’ll do then.

“Keeping toxic chemicals out of kids toys can’t really be the responsibility of the parents, because it’s not within their domain of control. You can be a responsible parent, you can only buy toys you “trust” (whatever that means) and your child will still be exposed to toys you didn’t have any say about. It’s unavoidable – other kids have toys, day care centers have toys, kids play with toys in the playground that other kids bring or leave behind. The only way to prevent these toys from coming into contact with kids is to keep them out of the marketplace to begin with.”

http://www.aquick.org/blog/2008/12/10/toys-and-testing/

Date and batch number is relatively easy.

Possible workaround: Market/label the items as “collectable craft/artwork; not CPSIA certified, hence not for use by children.” Then it’s up to the buyer to decide whether Junior should get his paws on it, based on how much they trust you, and you’re out of the loop.

Of course the other answer is that one can continue to assume CPSC is Really Unlikely to come after the person making a few hundred whatever-they-ares a year, simply because they’re unlikely to ever notice you exist.

Of course if you do something particularly stupid like creating a choking hazard that gets into the news, all bets are off and you can assume an irate relative will come after you with charges of everything from littering to public indecency to murder most foul. But that isn’t a change, and I don’t think this one item is likely to affect the outcome.

Is there any requirement in Federal Senate or House procedures to require “independent expert oversight” for the drafting of any law?

There is no requirement, or even an assumption, on the Hill that the legislators read or write the bills that they pass. Many bills are written by lobbyists and lawyers, who then “summarize” the content to attract votes and the bill becomes law.

Perhaps the requirement that we should request is testing and certification of the gray matter between the ears of the self-same legislators…

It seems like this fact – driving small manufacturers out of business like the old fellow down the street from me with his garage dor open and a sign that says “Hand Made Wooden Toys” – super classic! – is sort of a dirty secret the larger companies would know all along – similar to the need for Organic Certification to be able to sell organic produce.

Bureaucracy benefits large entities. Leaving things to the “Free Market” and trusting peoples inherent good to sell products that are safe and healthy doesn’t go very far – big companies are, for the most part, looking solely at bottom line – and if this means a little lead in jimmy’s crayons, then so be it!

“Now apply this principle to every other regulation and you see why our government is completely unsustainable.”

Yes, the fact that human institutions are fallible and make mistakes proves that the whole enterprise of trying to organize things equitably is “completely unsustainable.”

Heaven forbid we should, instead, analyze our mistakes and try to do a better job. That would obviously be “completely unsustainable.”

Let’s just chuck it all and have direct rule by the strong. Because anything else is “completely unsustainable.”

Is there any requirement in Federal Senate or House procedures to require “independent expert oversight” for the drafting of any law?

There needs to be.

As laws get more and more embedded into the intricate meshes of complex systems, the folks doing the work have less and less idea what they are doing.

Right now, it is like someone doing chip-level repair on a motherboard when they’ve used a computer for a little bit.

A “children’s product” means a consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger. In determining whether a consumer product is primarily intended for a child 12 years of age or younger, the following factors will be considered:

* A statement by the manufacturer about the intended use of the product, including a label on the product if such statement is reasonable.
* Whether the product is represented in its packaging, display, promotion or advertising as appropriate for use by children 12 years of age or younger.
* Whether the product is commonly recognized by consumers as being intended for use by a child 12 years of age or younger.
* The Age Determination Guidelines issued by the Commission staff in September 2002, and any successor to such guidelines.

So any product ‘commonly recognised by consumers’ as a prepubescent child’s toy could be covered by the Act, whether or not it’s labelled as ‘adult use only’, or ‘collectible’.

This surely is the best example I’ve ever seen of ‘nanny state’ legislation.

I suppose the intended age issue would put a crimp in my argument. However that does explain why my friend was so particular about the age requirement being on the boxes. But then dirty clown figures with switchblades and bottles of booze, which is one of his products, really isn’t for children, so I don’t think he will have that problem.

Assuming that small manufacturers are making toys for children, how do they ensure there is no lead or anything else in the toy? Just because it is”crafty” doesn’t mean that it is safe. I think it is more -likely- to be safe, but that means nothing.

Are there source certificates for wood dyes? wood preservatives? Fabric dyes? Plastic wheels? etc that a small manufacturer can rely on?

He made table lamps, ceiling lamps, standing lamps etc. Now according to german law, if you sell lamps you need extensive (and expensive) DIN testing.

So he sold art objects (and he stated as much to the buyer and on the receipt.) The consumer could use as a lamp if they so wished, but they would be doing so on their own initiative. (They had to mod the thing by the clever hack of screwing in a lightbulb I believe.)

So what’s to stop these toy manufaturers to go into the wooden kinetic car sculpture business?
Not their fault if irresponsible parents let their kids play with the “art objects”.

Get to Wal-Mart you hippies, and forget about buying any sort of handmade toys.