Toy makers say safety law may leave less fun on shelf

SAN FRANCISCO — Worries over lead paint in mass-market toys made the holidays a little brighter for handcrafted toy makers last year, but the federal government's response to the scare has some workshops fearful this Christmas might be their last.

Without changes to strict new safety rules, they said, mom-and-pop toy makers and retailers could be forced to conduct testing and labeling they can't afford, even if they use materials as benign as unfinished wood, organic cotton and beeswax.

"It's ironic that the companies who never violated the public trust, who have already operated with integrity, are the ones being threatened," said Julia Chen, owner of The Playstore in Palo Alto, Calif., which specializes in wooden and organic playthings.

In a memo released Wednesday, Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) employees recommended that the agency exempt some natural materials from the lead-testing requirements.

Lead paint spurred the recall of 45 million toys last year, most of them made in China for larger manufacturers. Parents flocked to stores such as The Playstore in the recall's aftermath, searching for safer alternatives.

Lawmakers also responded. 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 said reflect voluntary standards they have long observed to keep harmful substances out of toys. But they never thought their products also would 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 Dan Marshall, co-owner of Peapods Natural Toys and Baby Care in St. Paul, Minn.

Testing is costly

But a business that makes, for example, a few hundred handcrafted wooden baby rattles each year cannot afford to pay up to $4,000 a product for testing, a price some toy makers have been quoted, he said.

Marshall and nearly 100 other toy stores and makers have formed the Handmade Toy Alliance to ask Congress and the federal agency that enforces the law to exempt small toy companies or those that make toys entirely within the United States from testing and labeling rules.

Failing that, they want the CPSC to pre-emptively declare unfinished wood, wool and cotton and food-grade wood finishes such as beeswax, mineral oil and walnut oil to be lead-free.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., lead sponsor of the legislation, said toy makers should not worry. He said 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.

Determining what materials fall under that exemption falls to the safety commission, however, which has yet to issue guidelines. With a Feb. 10 deadline for complying with the law, small toy makers said they have no choice but to act as if the rules apply to them or risk facing fines of $100,000 a violation.

Staff toxicologists at the product-safety commission told agency commissioners in a memo released Wednesday that some unfinished natural materials should be considered lead-free. The materials include wood and fibers such as cotton, silk, wool and linen.

The safety commission is required to 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.

Toy-safety activists who helped push the legislation through Congress said they are sympathetic to small toy makers' anxieties.

Charles Margulis, of the anti-lead Center for Environmental Health in Oakland, Calif., said exemptions based on natural materials would be "sensible." But "Made in the USA" is not enough to ensure a toy is not toxic, he said, adding, "Materials from the U.S. could be lead-contaminated."

Fewer toys on shelves?

One European toy maker has said it will stop its exports to the United States because of the law's costs and uncertainties. Selecta Spielzeug, a German company, said this month that it will stop shipping wooden push toys, games and other products to 1,200 U.S. stores after Dec. 31.

Mike Lee, co-owner of Sarah's Silks in Forestville, Calif., said fewer of his company's costumes, hats and capes for children will likely appear on U.S. store shelves in coming months. If testing costs are not curtailed for his more than 100 products, he said, he may have to reduce his nine-employee staff.

"We're not that big we can plunk out $20,000 or $30,000 every time we do this," Lee said. "I'd rather invest that much more of that money in people."

Chen, the owner of The Playstore, said pulling toys from shelves means fewer choices for parents who want something different for their children than they can find at big-box stores. If no exemptions are made, Chen said, the number of brands she sells could drop from more than 300 to about 10.

"Our whole mix is going to have to change," Chen said. "This is truly, actually threatening our access to safe toys."