Reporter's Notebook

Getting the lead out

Remember the state law going into effect yesterday that could require extensive chemical testing on children’s products? You can forget about it for a year. Sort of.

Washington’s Children’s Safe Products Act was overridden Jan. 30 with a unanimous vote by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission to delay enforcement of testing and certification requirements until Feb. 10, 2010.

“If they are going to delay a year, we’re not going to challenge that,” said Carol Kraege, toxics policy coordinator for the Washington State Department of Ecology. “There’s room for argument, but we decided it wasn’t an argument we needed to have.”

The stay of enforcement doesn’t apply to certain products that could contain lead and other harmful chemicals, including paint and surface coatings, cribs, Pacifiers and metal jewelry manufactured after certain dates. (Details are at http://www.cpsc.gov/pr/proom.html)

The federal regulations target large manufacturers, but could put small retailers in a bind, Kraege said, especially if they sell handmade or secondhand toys.

“Testing is prohibitively expensive for a store like that,” she said. “The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act wants to focus on the larger manufacturers, which makes a lot of sense because the whole supply chain will be better if the focus is there.”

The year-long delay gives regulators, manufacturers and retailers time to figure out how to get harmful chemicals out of the product stream, Kraege said. She hopes retailers and manufacturers will work together to identify problem products.

“(Small retailers) should be asking collectively, if possible, if they can go back to their respective supply chains,” she said. “I don’t think testing is ultimately where they need to go. They need to make some good decisions about what they’re going to sell.”

--Charity Thompson can be reached at cthompson@vbjusa.com