Dillon and Christie

Our sweet family and life adventures.

Have you heard of this?!!!!!

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Today I was at our local kid-to-kid type store called Sweet Pea Boutique. They had hundreds of clothing items for $1.00 a piece. They said they had to clear some stuff out. I had dropped off some items to trade for in-store credit. Carson needed some more shirts, Bailey had an excess, so it was a good thing for us, seeing as how we have so many expenses to pay for now. I was so pleased to get 7 items for $7.00! Things that we needed, traded for things we didn’t need. I was thinking about how thankful I am for thrift stores! I just love that people can give what they don’t use and want to people who really can’t afford new, like us, currently. I almost made a trip to DI just to look at their toys and see if they had anything good, but Bailey was a bit sad.

But while I was in Sweet Pea, I overheard them telling another lady that they couldn’t take toys anymore, that some federal law was being passed that didn’t allow them to sell toys anymore. I thought that was sad, and strange, and wondered why.

Well, my friend Sabra just posted on her blog the answer to my question!
The following is taken from this website: http://www.change.org/ideas/view/save_handmade_toys_from_the_cpsia

“In 2007, large toy manufacturers who outsource their production to China and other developing countries violated the public’s trust. They were selling toys containing dangerously high lead content, unsafe small parts, and chemicals that made kids sick.

The United States Congress rightly recognized that the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) lacked the authority and staffing to prevent dangerous toys from being imported into the US. So, they passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August 2008. Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in children’s products, mandates third party testing and certification, and requires manufacturers of all goods for children under the age of 12, to permanently label each item with a date and batch number.

All of these changes will be fairly easy for large, multinational companies to comply with. Large manufacturers who make thousands of units of each item have very little incremental cost to pay for testing and updating their systems to include batch labels. Small businesses however, will likely be driven out of business by the costs of mandatory testing, to the tune of as much as $4,000 or more per item. And the few larger manufacturers 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.

Anyone who produces or sells any of the following new or used items will be required to comply with the law: toys, books, clothing, art, educational supplies, materials for the learning disabled, bicycles, and more. Any uncertified item intended for children under the age of 12 will be considered contraband after February 10, 2009. It will be illegal to sell or give these items away to charities, and the government will require their destruction or permanent disposal, resulting in millions of tons of unnecessary waste, and placing an enormous strain on our landfills.

There is a clear disconnect between the sweeping nature of this law, and the narrow range of products that were problematic in 2007. The CPSIA applies standards that were put in place in reaction to the sale of toys contaminated with lead paint and toxic plastics. Rather than focus on these materials, this law places a guilty until proven innocent mentality on all children’s product producers by imposing mandatory testing and certification, and in the process will kill an entire industry.

Thriving small businesses are crucial to the financial health of our nation. Let’s amend the CPSIA so that all businesses large and small are able to comply and survive!”

Is this not absolutely insane!? I could really care less that I wouldn’t be able to sell my Lemon Squeezy stuff anymore, compared to how I feel about the enormous amount of waste this would be!

Anyways, I have to look into this more and find out what I can do to help out more. I voted on some website, the change.org one, but I’m not sure what good it will do since I haven’t read enough on this yet. So sorry, I can’t be of more help, but I just wanted to make people aware that this is happening and we need to try and stop it! There is this cute little button to post on your blog or website. You can click it and find out a little bit more on what you can do. Like I said, I don’t have the answers on what will make a difference, but researching it will help us all learn more about the issue anyways and find out some answers.

Comments

  1. I just heard about this yesterday on a hair blog that I check. I’ll send you the link. She’s got several sites you can go to learn more about it. I haven’t read them all, but one or more of them might give some info on what can be done about that. I don’t like it at all. I think they took it waaay tooo far. You won’t even be able to make something for your child or niece and give it to them as a gift unless you can prove there’s no lead. You won’t even be able to sell used toys or clothing for kids at garage sells. I don’t think they thought too much about the law before they passed it.

    But yeah, I don’t agree with the law, at least not for second hand stuff or stuff that was made here in the USA.

  3. That’s too bad, it’ll be good to look into it to see what can be done, as far as not being able to make your own family something, I’m sure the police aren’t going to use much of their time busting people with handmade gifts between family members or friends. At least that would be really ridiculous… like that old claymation video about how Santa came to be, when toys were illegal.

  5. Quick update on this. I just went to our Kid-to-kid today to see if they had the same deals going on. According to the lady running the store, yesterday a head-honcho at the white house looked at the bill because of all the law suits they’re getting from retail stores, and at the moment, the bill will not be carried out as it’s written. So now, all retail stores are not supposed to be effected by it. It’s supposed to only effect the manufactures. Now, all this is just hear-say from the lady running the store, but hopefully she’s correct.

  6. oh man… sorry I haven’t been by in awhile…. i kept looking at your blog through reeder and wonderinf why you weren’t updating and posting….duh, cuz your private I can’t read it on reader…. oops. So, I’ve back read and I’ve missed a ton! First, how cute is Bailey in her christmas dress?!?! LOVE IT!!! and sledding….. we did that this morning! Ryah loved it!!!
    So, glad to hear you had a great holiday season and that Bailey is healthy and strong!

    XO

  7. channel 2 did a story on this last night. Its pretty crazy what businesses will have to do just to sell toys anymore. It sure openened my eyes because one day I will want to go to stores like those but who know if there will be any once I have kids.

  8. A few thoughts from me :)

    1) that blog the other comment posted is owned by a friend of mine, the same friend that I quoted in my blog. thought that was funny.

    2) No, it’s not likely the law will be heavily enforced on a local level. BUT do you really want to have to choose to break the law just to make things for family and friends? We’re told to be honest and uphold the law, so if you’re going to do that, you’ll have to follow the crazy regulations of this one, too.

    3) the clarifications are just a good example to me of how nuts this all is. Seriously, if they have to review and backtrack, maybe it’s just a crappy law that should have been thought out more before actually passing onto the books.

    4)I was sent from another aquantance information on joining a class action suite for those that make handmade goods, as a violation of constitutional rights. If anyone wants that info you can email me at sabragubler@gmail.com and I’ll forward it onto you :)

    shutting up now.