A lead detector finds over 5000 parts per million of lead in this toy. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)
Millions of toys were recalled
last year because of lead contamination.
There were about half as many recalls this
year, but lead in toys is still a problem.
Rebecca Williams reports there’s a new law
that will limit the amount of lead in any
toy or children’s product, but it won’t go
into effect until after the holidays:
Transcript
Millions of toys were recalled
last year because of lead contamination.
There were about half as many recalls this
year, but lead in toys is still a problem.
Rebecca Williams reports there’s a new law
that will limit the amount of lead in any
toy or children’s product, but it won’t go
into effect until after the holidays:
There is already a federal limit on how much lead can be in the paint on
kids’ toys. But lead can also be in places you might not expect – like plastic
parts of toys.
The new law puts a limit on lead in any part of a toy. But the new law won’t
take effect until February 10th. So that means toys that you can buy now
can legally have very high levels of lead embedded in them.
Mike Shriberg is with the Ecology Center. It’s an environmental group
that’s been testing toys for lead.
(beep)
He has an analyzer that tells you what elements are in a toy – in this case, a
plastic building block.
“So when I look at the results here, this orange block has over 3,000 parts
per million of lead. Now remember this will be illegal to be on the shelves
in February. It’s legal now because the lead’s not in the paint, it’s embedded
in the plastic.”
Babies and little kids’ brains and bodies are still developing. Since they tend
to put toys in their mouths, they’re really vulnerable to damage from lead.
“There is no safe level of lead in blood. Pediatricians have said a little bit of
lead causes a little bit of brain damage and a lot of lead causes a lot of brain
damage. We think toys shouldn’t be involved in causing any amount of
brain damage.”
Mike Shriberg says there is no way to know just by looking which toys have
lead and which ones don’t. But he says children’s jewelry is by far the
worst. They found it’s five times more likely to have lead than other toys.
He says simpler toys, such as unpainted wooden toys, tend to be safer.
“Just to be clear there is no surefire rule.”
Shriberg’s group has tested 1,500 toys this year and has put the results up on
their website: healthy-toys dot org.
The group found about one in every five toys still has lead.
Mattel and Hasbro say they’re carefully testing their toys this year. And
retailers such as Toys R Us and Wal-Mart are also testing toys.
The National Retail Federation did not return calls for comment.
The National Association of Manufacturers did not want to comment for this
story. But in a recent Wall Street Journal article – a spokesperson for the
trade group said billions of dollars in inventory could be lost when the new
lead law goes into effect.
Three billion toys are sold in the US each year. So who’s going to make
sure all those toys comply with the new law? A small government agency.
Julie Vallese is with the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
“CPSC always has investigators in the field looking for products in violation
of safety standards. Now it is a big market and we do have limited
resources. But we have a systematic way of going about looking for
violations and we will be doing that come February 10th.”
Last year, the New York Times reported that just one man, named Bob, was
responsible for testing toys for safety.
Agency officials say that’s not true – they say many people test toys. We
asked how many. We asked repeatedly. We wanted to know the exact
number of people who test toys for lead. But they refused to tell us.
Congress has promised more money for more toy testers. But that has not
happened yet.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission says besides – industry has the
biggest responsibility here.
The agency says when the new toy law goes into effect in February, it’ll be
up to the manufacturers, the retailers and the importers to make sure the toys
they’re selling are not in violation of the new lead law.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.