Posted on 01/04/2009 6:02:37 AM PST by Megben
Trent Hamm at thesimpledollar.com writes in his January 3 entry (excerpted) : "For those of you who haven’t heard the news yet, on February 10, 2009, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act comes into effect. One of the major changes that this program will bring into play is a mandate that everything sold for children 12 and younger will have to be tested for lead and phthalates, and anything that isn’t tested (or that fails) will be considered hazardous and cannot be sold. Read more about the CPSIA at the L.A. Times and some interesting blog commentary from the fashion industry. Where things get interesting is with used products. Consider your local resale and thrift shop. Currently, all of their secondhand children’s clothes will have to be tested for lead and phthalates. Given that many such stores aren’t high-income operations - many are nonprofits - these shops simply cannot afford to do the testing on the children’s clothes on their shelves.
So what happens? Most thrift shops are currently not accepting any children’s clothing at all. Sometime in the next month or so, all thrift shops will have to clear all of their children’s clothing from the shelves … and send them to the landfill. (It’s worth noting that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering a reprieve for products made from natural materials, which would exempt some clothes, but not nearly all clothes"
From reading the whole article, it appears that this will apply to used/new products that are sold at garage sales, thrift stores, ebay, etc. The discussion that follows the blog posts lists going to the sites of the National Bankruptcy Day or the Handmade Toy Alliance Site to write your congressman/woman.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesimpledollar.com ...
Very interesting. Blue means they were starved for oxygen. Lots of things do that.
http://www.rhophylac.com/AboutHDN/aboutHDN.asp?gclid=COjNkaXe9ZcCFRykagodIC8pDA
Doesn’t sound quite right.
My wife and started an internet store back in June to sell handmade swaddling blankets. It took us a while to get going but in October we finally started turning a profit and business is really beginning to look up. Guess what? Unless they pass some exemptions to this law before February 10, we’re going to have to shut down or be in serious violation of the law. As it is written, EVERYTHING sold for children is covered by the law: toys, clothes, bedding, cups, bibs, car seats - EVERYTHING. There is no way we can afford to test each and every one of our sku’s for lead (which is the requirement) at $700-$1000 a pop when we sell our blankets for less than $20 each. Heck, our monthly sales right now are only $1000 and this law would apply to each individual pattern and color we might choose. And yeah, we could just ignore the law and I’m sure people would keep buying from us, but at some point some government bureaucrat is going to come knock on my door and my ass will be sent to jail, in addition to being fined $100,000 PER VIOLATION. I can’t handle that risk and I can’t afford those penalties, so we’re going out of business. Maybe they will pass some exceptions, but right now we are in trouble. Ridiculous.
Correct. My sister has been telling me about this. She makes hand-made clothing and will likely have to stop due to this law.
There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
I’m a sewer and make hand-made items for children. I also buy children’s ready-to wear to embroider and decorate. I resell at craftshows and donate some of my items for auction at charities. I found this posted in a forum at www.craftlister.com. Sorry, the link to the article won’t work, so I just copied and pasted from the forum.
Toy companies cheer proposed lead rule changes
By MARCUS WOHLSEN – Dec 24, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The makers of handcrafted toys received some holiday hope Wednesday with support from a federal agency for proposed exemptions from strict lead-testing regulations they feared could put them out of business.
Last year’s discovery of lead paint in mass-market toys prompted the government to pass new safety rules requiring testing and labeling that mom-and-pop workshops and retailers said they could not afford.
As a February deadline for complying with the law loomed, toy makers who use benign materials such as unfinished wood, organic cotton and beeswax sought exemptions from the rules they said could apply to them.
In a memo released Wednesday, Consumer Product Safety Commission staffers recommended that the agency exempt some natural materials from the lead testing requirements.
“I think this is definitely a step in the right direction and would provide substantial and enormous relief to our manufacturers,” said Dan Marshall, co-owner of Peapods Natural Toys and Baby Care in St. Paul, Minn.
Marshall and nearly 100 other toy stores and makers formed the Handmade Toy Alliance to ask lawmakers to exempt small toy companies from testing and labeling rules.
Staff toxicologists at the product safety commission told agency commissioners in the memo that some unfinished natural materials should be considered lead free. The materials include wood and fibers such as cotton, silk, wool, hemp, flax and linen.
The safety commission still must vote on the recommendations.
“The agency is diligently working on providing rules that would define some exclusions and some exemptions,” said Julie Vallese, a spokeswoman for the product safety commission.
Lead paint prompted recall of 45 million toys last year, mostly made in China. Parents flocked to small specialty toy stores in the aftermath searching for safer alternatives.
In August, President Bush imposed the world’s strictest lead ban in products for children 12 or younger by signing the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
Small toy makers strongly back the restrictions in the bill, which they say reflect voluntary standards they have long observed to keep harmful substances out of toys. But they never thought their products would also be considered a threat.
Under the law, all children’s products must be tested for lead and other harmful substances. Toy makers are required to pay a third-party lab for the testing and to put tracking labels on all toys to show when and where they were made.
Those requirements make sense for a multinational toy manufacturer churning out thousands of plastic toys on an overseas assembly line, said Marshall
But a business that makes, for example, a few hundred handcrafted wooden baby rattles each year cannot afford to pay up to $4,000 per product for testing, a price some toy makers have been quoted, he said.
Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., lead sponsor of the legislation, says toy makers should not worry. Rush points out that the law already exempts products and materials that do not threaten public safety or health.
“This exemption should be sufficient to affect most companies,” Rush said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
But without specific guidelines from the safety commission and a Feb. 10 deadline approaching, small toy makers felt they had no choice but to follow the law or risk facing fines of $100,000 per violation.
The product safety commission has until Jan. 5 to decide on the recommended exemptions.
Not everyone is satisfied that the proposal goes far enough to alleviate the burden on small toy makers.
Because the exemptions only apply to unfinished materials, very few toy makers will have products that are entirely spared from testing, said Julia Chen, owner of The Playstore in Palo Alto, which specializes in wooden and organic playthings.
“Let’s be real and focus on these mass produced, manmade-material toys, because those are the ones that caused the problems we know about,” she said.
http://www.buggalove.com/articles.htm
Here is a link to a site featuring hand-made baby items. The site’ owner has posted details of her communication with the CPSC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjwNu7w2BSQ
A short news segment interviewing a home-based business owner that will be affected by the law.
Go as long as you can and let your customers know about this and why you’re going out of business. The more people know about this, the better off we’ll all be.
Some years ago, some liberal in Congress tried to regulate homeschooling by passing some legislation labeled HR6. They messed with the wrong crowd. The response shut down the switchboard (from overload) and they were stunned. They didn’t have a clue about what was coming but they found out fast enough. They backed down. It can work.
I just got a almost new London Fog raincoat It happen to have a red tag on it so it went at half price. I paid $2.50 for it.Then took it to the Dry Clearner for cleaning although it looked as good as new, for $10.
Earlier this winter I got a woolen London Fog for $8.00
“But it appears that big corps used the tainted products from China as an excuse to pass legislation that is designed to destroy small business and especially folks making craft-type items in their home and selling them online.”
That is usually the reason behind most regulatory legislation. Environmental laws are another area that is really pushed by big corporations to help make their products more “scarce” thus up the price.
Y’all missed the more orwellian implications of a law such as this. Clearly, kids might be poisoned by the chemicals contained in children’s books and textbooks produced before this law goes into effect.
Anyone of real worth worth electing is defeated by the money that buys puppet candidates for special interest groups or corporations. The two-party machine is well oiled enough to not allow any real competition.
What I would like to see is the People exercise what was propounded in the Declaration:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
“Don’t bother. Somebody didn’t do the research before they hit the alarm button. The ban only applies to clothing manufactured after the effective date.”
Based on the letter referenced, I disagree with your interpretation. It looks like lead and phthalates are being treated differently. Essentially, items containing lead above the limits outlined are now considered hazardous substances and cannot be sold in the U.S. No distinction appears to be being made as to when the article in question was manufactured or whether the article is new or used. The only way that sellers can be certain that the item in question does not contain lead in amounts above the limit is to test it. For a $2 outfit purchased at a thrift store or garage sale, the cost of testing is obviously prohibitive.
Phthalates look to be treated differently. In that case it looks like it’s only articles manufactured after February 10th.
Anyway, excellent observation on your part!
Thanks for the article!
“I agree the American People hold some culpability in all this. However, in terms of electing people, they can only elect who is placed in front of them. And choosing the lesser of two evils is still evil.”
So true - and no better illustration of that than our most recent Presidential election.
(sigh)
Anything to prevent us from relying on family, friends and/or charity, if need be. We must rely on the government because it knows best. As recently as a few years ago, those comments would have received a guffaw around here. Not, not so much.
ping
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