We know that many of you have heard about the new toy safety regulations that are slated to take effect in the US starting in February. While well intended this flawed legislation will have devastating consequences for small toymakers and handmade toy vendors such as Mahar Drygoods.

You’ll remember last year, media throughout the United States were broadcasting story after story about the recall of toys made for children that included dangerously high levels of lead or other chemicals or small parts that could easily detach and be swallowed by a child. Several of the world’s leading toy manufacturers were forced to recall tens of thousands of units of toys to ensure the safety of American children. Almost every problem toy recalled in 2007 was made in China.

To grant authority to the Consumer Products Safety Commission to prevent dangerous toys from being imported into the USA, the United States Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in August, 2008. CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and requires toymakers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number.

To comply with the new guidelines large manufacturers making thousands of units of each toy will have to incur very little incremental cost to pay for testing and update their molds to include batch labels. For small American toymakers, however, the costs of mandatory testing will likely drive them out of business.

Consider the following examples:

• A toymaker who makes wooden marionettes in his Maine workshop 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 Michigan who makes exquisite play food to sell through her online shop 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 toymakers 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.

CPSIA simply forgot to exclude the class of toys that have earned and kept the public’s trust - quality toys handmade in the United States. The result, unless the law is modified, is that handmade toys will no longer be legal in the US.

So what action can you take? Please write to your United States Congress Person and Senator and the CPSC to request changes in the CPSIA to save handmade toys. Use the sample letter below or write your own. You can find your Congress Person here and Senator here. Write to the CPSC here. And, please consider signing the Handmade Toy Alliance petition here, and spend some time reviewing the wealth of information provided on their site.

The Handmade Toy Alliance has composed the following sample letter.

Re: Changes needed to the Consumer Product Improvement Act (CPSIA) to Save Handmade Toys in the USA

Dear [your congress person or senator],

Like many people, I was deeply concerned by the dangerous and poisonous toys that large Chinese toy manufacturers have been selling to our nations families. And, I was very pleased that Congress acted quickly to protect America’s children by enacting the CPSIA.

However, I am very concerned that the CPSIA’s mandates for third party testing and labeling will have a dramatic and negative effect on small toymakers in the USA, Canada, and Europe, whose toy safety record has always been exemplary.

Because of the fees charged by Third Party testing companies, many toymakers, especially makers of unique and beautiful wooden toys from Maine to Oregon will be driven out of business. Their cottage workshops simply do not make enough money to afford the $4,000 price tag per toy that Third Party testers are charging.

I urge you to quickly rewrite the CPSIA so that toys made in batches of less than 5,000 units per year or manufactured within the USA and trusted countries with established toy safety regimes such as Canada and the European Union be held exempt from third party testing requirements. Such toys could still be subject to random auditing by the CPSC.

If you feel that testing should still be required, then the CPSC should be made to offer free testing services for USA toymakers and importers from Europe or Canada with revenues less than one million dollars.

These toy makers have earned and kept the public’s trust. They provide jobs for hundreds and quality playthings for thousands. Their unique businesses should be protected. Please visit www.handmadetoyalliance.org to learn more about this issue.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

[your name]