Recent developments from the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) has put many of small toy-making companies at risk.

Facts about what’s happening: 

Because of previous years toys issues (think lead in toys), the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) was passed this last summer. These guidelines help to insure banning on lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and requires certification for all toys. It also means that toy makers must permanently label each toy with a date and batch number.

We all want safe toys; that’s true. No one wants their child playing with icky lead and toys that could harm. That said, the CPSIA is overkill. Instead of placing regulations on toys from places who have traditionally had issue with lead and other safety issues, the CPSIA is being applied to ALL toy-makers.

What this means to toy-makers: 

Small American, Canadian, and European toy-makers, will most likely be driven out of business. The cost to run individual and mandatory rigorous testing is unreachable to most small company toy-makers.

According to the Handmade Toy Alliance the following negative issues are connected to the CPSIA:

• 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.

Why this sucks:

Here at Pregnancy & Baby, I try to show safe toys. I don’t want your children playing with unsafe toys any more than you do. I like to share toy ideas from small companies as well as large. I share handmade toys from Etsy. I’m also a huge green advocate, so I tend to show many sustainable toys. These new regulatons have already affected one green toy company to the point of shutting down operations in the US. Will more follow? Most likely, if this poorly defined law is set in stone.

Parents need to have toy choices. If we lose handmade and green toy company toys, we’ll be left with very few green toy choices, and for those of us who support buying handmade items, we’re out of luck. This will affect crafters who make handmade toys, (think Etsy) and leave parents with conventional toy options only.

You can help speak up about this CPSP decision.  You can make it known that we as parents deserve choices when it comes to toys for our kids. First of all you can sign the online petition to Save Handmade Toys in the USA from the CPSIA. You can also write to your United States Congress Person and Senator to request changes in the CPSIA to save handmade toys.  Use the Handmade Toy Alliance sample letter or write your own.  You can find your Congress Person here and Senator here.

Learn more:

• Breaking news: Selecta to cease U.S. distribution due to new testing requirements
• Help save handmade toys
• Alert! New Consumer Product Safety Rules Will Make Handmade, Natural Toys Illegal