This Christmas, when you’re shopping for the little ones in your life, don’t just thoughtlessly grab toys off the store shelves. An environmental group found that a mind-boggling 1 in 3 toys tested was found to contain toxic chemicals like lead, flame retardants and arsenic. The Ecology Center tested more than 1,500 popular toys for contaminants and found that one-third of them contain “medium” or “high” levels of chemicals of concern.
From CNN:
Researchers bought the toys at chain stores including Target, Kmart, Toys R Us, Babies R Us, TJ Maxx, and Wal-Mart, as well as drug stores, dollar stores, on-line retailers and independent toy stores, according to the HealthyToys.org Web site, where the report was posted.
The toys were purchased at stores in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Mich.; Oakland, Calif.; and Albany, N.Y.
The group’s Web site said that the sampling was not random or intended to be representative of all toys on the market. The toys were tested using a handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) device that uses x-ray fluorescence spectrometry to detect chemicals like lead, cadmium, chlorine, arsenic, mercury, tin, and antimony.
The study found lead in 20% of the toys tested. In 3.5% of the toys, or 54 items, levels of lead exceeded the federal recall level for paint, 600 parts-per-million.
Also according to the study, children’s jewelry is 5 times more likely to contain lead above the toxic 600 ppm-level than other toys. In particular, the report mentioned that several Hannah Montana brand jewelry items tested high for lead.
Naturally, the toy industry is refuting the report, calling it ‘misleading’ and saying that toys are a “highly regulated industry that has been subject to intense scrutiny”. But, the thing is, toy manufacturers only meet very low minimum standards set by the government.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is putting new regulations in place for toy safety – but not in time for the Christmas buying season. That means that although, come February, many of the toys currently on the shelves will become illegal due to high levels of dangerous contaminants, thousands of those toys will already be in homes across the country.
Shop safe for your kids this holiday season – check out HealthyToys.org, the consumer guide to toxic chemicals in toys. It has toy rankings including best toys and worst toys – and you can search by brand.
And, The Daily Green has a list of toys that have recently been recalled due to lead.
Link [CNN Money] + [Healthy Toys]
