After being betrayed by large toy corporations that manufacture their products in Chinese factories with little regard for the health of the children that the toys will ultimately belong to, parents in America have turned to local toy makers who thoughtfully hand-craft items like dolls, train sets and blocks. But, now, because of a ham-fisted attempt by the U.S. government to belatedly control an industry that puts profits far ahead of people, those handmade toy artisans might lose their businesses.
It seems like every week we hear about another popular toy that’s being taken off the shelves (after many have already been sold) due to high levels of lead, unsafe parts and other safety problems. So, stricter regulations are certainly welcome. But, in passing the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August, Congress failed to exclude safe handmade toys made in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
From the Handmade Toy Alliance:
Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and requires toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number.
All of these changes will be fairly easy for large, multinational toy manufacturers to comply with. Large manufacturers who make thousands of units of each toy have very little incremental cost to pay for testing and update their molds to include batch labels.
For small American, Canadian, and European toymakers, however, the costs of mandatroy testing will likely drive them out of business.
- A toymaker, for example, who makes wooden cars in his garage in Maine to supplement his income cannot afford the $4,000 fee per toy that testing labs are charging to assure compliance with the CPSIA.
- A work at home mom in Minnesota who makes dolls to sell at craft fairs must choose either to violate the law or cease operations.
- A small toy retailer in Vermont who imports wooden toys from Europe, which has long had stringent toy safety standards, must now pay for testing on every toy they import.
- And even the handful of larger toy makers who still employ workers in the United States face increased costs to comply with the CPSIA, even though American-made toys had nothing to do with the toy safety problems of 2007.
What this means is, unless the law is modified, handmade toys will be illegal to sell in the United States. Some European toy makers have already announced that they will no longer be selling their products in the U.S. come February, meaning parents have fewer safe products to choose from.
As the Handmade Toy Alliance put it, “If this law had been applied to the food industry, every farmers market in the country would be forced to close while Kraft and Dole prospered.” That doesn’t make any sense at all.
Here’s how you can help: write to your United States congressman or congresswoman and your senator to request changes to the CPSIA that would protect handmade toys. You can use this sample letter, provided by the Handmade Toy Alliance. We’ve got to protect the local artisans who make a living off providing our kids with safe, natural alternatives to the plastic junk made in China.
Link [Handmade Toy Alliance]
Photo credit: Etsy seller Petit Flaneur
