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January 10, 2009

Law requires testing for lead on all children’s products

By Arthur E. Foulkes

TERRE HAUTE — Dana Street and other small-scale toymakers are calling Feb. 10 National Bankruptcy Day.

That’s the day new federal regulations take effect requiring all children’s products be tested for lead and other hazardous materials by independent testing labs. The testing costs can add up to thousands of dollars and for small, independent handcrafters such as Street, the cost of complying with the new law would be prohibitive.

“It’s basically going to put us all out of business,” said Street, who handcrafts children’s products from her home in Hymera. “I have children and I want their toys and clothes to be safe, but I think there has to be a medium somewhere,” she said.

Large companies, such as Toys “R” Us, Walmart and Hasbro, have already taken steps to comply with the new law, but smaller-business owners may not be able to afford the testing fees, said Adam Brown, a spokesman for Etsy.com, a Web site dedicated to sales of handcrafted items.

“It has a potentially huge impact on our community,” Brown said. “It would essentially shut them down,” he said.

Ironically, many handcrafted items are designed by people with a deep concern about using environmentally friendly materials and making very safe toys, Brown said. “It’s about as natural as you can get,” he said. “If you’re making stuffed animals, there is a very low chance there will be lead” in it.

Still, the law requires extensive testing on all children’s products, including one-of-a-kind handmade toys. It also requires the products be “certified” with a label showing it passed and showing its place of origin.

The law covers products designed for kids under 12 and also requires that each element of the product be tested. For example, a doll would need its stuffing, features, clothes and shoes tested and certified separately.

“It’s not just about toys,” said Krystine Vermeer, who sells children’s “onesies” imported from China from her small business in Rockford, Ill. Vermeer’s onesies had to be tested recently in China. A batch of 1,000 cost $550 to test, she said. The test found no traces of lead or other hazardous materials in the onesies.

The law also covers items such as bicycles, bed sheets, mattresses, cribs, hair bows, puppets, and virtually anything else a child might come into contact with. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently proposed testing exemptions for some all-natural products, such as organic cotton and wood, but the testing will still be required if any natural product is modified at all, such as with dye.

“It’s not going to matter,” Street said of the new exemptions. Testing will still be required of all the products she makes in her Sullivan County studio, she said.

Another exemption announced last week by the CPSC allows resellers of children’s products, such as thrift stores, to avoid the testing and certification requirements. However, resellers are still prohibited from selling children’s products with lead levels that exceed the newly-mandated limits on lead content and would face criminal or civil penalties if they do.

“We take safety very seriously,” said Bill Tennis, executive director of Wabash Valley Goodwill Industries, Inc. “I will be reviewing the [new] regulations to determine how they will specifically impact us, our consumers and our communities,” he said.

One thing suggesting third-party lead testing will remain expensive is that there will be few labs in the U.S. certified by the CPSC to do the testing after Aug. 14. According to the agency’s Web site, there are around 20 such labs in the U.S. now, but not all are certified to do all types of testing that might be needed for many children’s products.

“I have been overwhelmed with testing” requests, said Jennifer Taggart, an environmental health advocate and provider of testing services. Later this year, however, the equipment Taggart uses to test for lead will no longer be approved by the CPSC. Taggart hopes the CPSC amends its rules once again to keep testing services such as hers operating. She also hopes the rules will be changed so that bulk fabric can be tested and then sold to crafters who will then not be responsible to have the products they make further tested for lead.

“That makes sense to me,” Taggart said.

Under the new rules, children’s products with more than 600 ppm of lead will be banned and anyone caught selling such products will face possible civil and criminal penalties, according to the CPSC Web site. The limit will drop to 300 ppm in August and then to 100 ppm two years later. The lead in paint limit drops to 90 ppm in August 2010, the Web site notes.

Despite guidelines published on the CPSC Web site, many handcrafters and other small-business owners who sell children’s products remain uncertain about the new law, which is more than 60 pages in length and includes several different sections.

“There’s mass confusion,” Vermeer said. Some people believe products made before Feb. 10 will be exempt from the new law, but that’s not true, she said. “After Feb. 10, everything on your shelves has to be compliant,” she said.

Some small dealers in children’s products are still hoping the law can be amended further to keep them from going out of business. The CPSC has a small staff and may not be able to enforce the new rules very well, but no one wants to be fined or jailed for not following the new testing rules, Vermeer said. “I certainly don’t want to be the first $10,000 fine,” she said.

The big push for tighter testing and lead level assurances in children’s products started after Christmas of 2007 when several children’s toys imported from China were found to contain lead paint and many were recalled. Congress soon overwhelmingly passed the new law and President Bush signed it this past summer. Supporters of the new regulations, such as Public Citizen and the Natural Resources Defense Council, say they are needed to ensure unsafe products stay out of the hands of children. After the new law was passed, Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, called it a “huge victory for America’s littlest consumers in the face of ExxonMobil and the chemical industry’s efforts to gut it.”

Lead, which has been banned from paint in the U.S. since 1978, is a neurotoxin that can harm the brain, lower IQ and cause behavioral problems in children.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the law by a vote of 424 to 1.

Still, for small handcrafters, the new law, as it stands, could mean shutting down or risking penalties. Testing costs for a single hand-crafted T-shirt with several colors and materials could cost up to $1,200, Street said. “There’s no way,” she said.

“Some of these people are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in over their heads in testing costs,” Vermeer said. “It’s absolutely flooring.”

Many handcrafters who sell on Etsy.com or from their homes make little money on the products they sell, Etsy.com’s Brown noted.

“For most it’s a labor of love,” he said. “We understand the intent of the law, [but] I think [Congress] just didn’t think it through all the way.”

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.

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