Lead found in common holiday toys
November 18, 2009 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under Green Living
The Center for Environmental Health (CEH) recently tested about 250 toys and children’s accessories from local Bay Area and San Diego retailers, including Target, WalMart, TJ Maxx, Tuesday Morning, Sears, Walgreens and other stores this fall and then had said toys tested for lead (pdf). Although lead has been banned from toys here in the US, seven of the toys were found to contain high levels of lead including a seemingly innocent, Mattel Barbie bicycle accessory set and a Disney “Tinker Bell” necklace set.
While the bike accessories and necklace contained the most lead, the CHE also found levels of lead in violation of the new federal law in a Dora the Explorer game set, two children’s shoes, a child’s poncho, and a child’s belt.
Obviously there hasn’t been enough of a crackdown on some major toy companies.
The California Attorney General has notified the retailers and the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) of the lead-tainted products but even so, Michael Green, Executive Director of CEH, notes, “When parents shop for toys this year, they need to know that there are still some lead problems on store shelves.”
A full report of the results from all the CEH tests and more testing by other groups will be published by Healthy Toys on December 2. Of course if you don’t want to wait, you can still shop smartly for safer toys. Read the following for tips…
[image via stock.xchng]
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