And help save handmade children's items! This includes toys, clothing, blankets, burp cloths ... anything intended for children under the age of 12. A new law was passed this year and goes into affect February 2009 - their intentions were good BUT the law is so vague that all these small business owners will go out of business. And no longer will you be able to purchase all of the wonderful handmade items you have for your little ones(without it being against the law).
This information was copied from
www.change.org/ideas/view/save_handmade_toys_from_the_cpsia - A Proposal From the handmadetoyalliance.org: In 2007, large toy manufacturers who outsource their production to China and other developing countries violated the public's trust. They were selling toys with dangerously high lead content, toys with unsafe small parts, toys with improperly secured and easily swallowed small magnets, and toys made from chemicals that made kids sick. Almost every problem toy in 2007 was made in China.
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 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 mandatory testing, to the tune of up to $4,000 per toy, will likely drive them out of business. And 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.
The CPSIA simply forgot to exclude the class of toys that have earned and kept the public's trust. The result, unless the law is modified, is that handmade toys will no longer be legal in the US.
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!
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Cecilia Leibovitz (Founder, CraftsburyKids.com)
Please keep in mind that this does not affect only toy makers. As the law is written at this time I could not continue to sell my blankets and burp cloths without the proper testing - which as you read above is EXTREMELY expensive. Please click on the link to the left and vote.
Thank you,
Kim
