No More Second Hand Toys??!!

There's been a lot of discussion going on about the sale and resale of toys. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act is going into effect on February 10th, 2009. This law has evoked much feedback from various components of the toy industry, including resellers like thrift stores.

One of the high points of this law is that it mandates the testing of new toys to make sure that they do not contain more than 600 parts per million total lead. If they do not pass this test, they cannot be sold, period. Apart from the lead content, selected children’s products manufactured on or after February 10, 2009 cannot be sold if the levels of specific phthalates exceed 0.1%. The CPSC released a statement on January 8th, 2009 clarifying the above information.

Thrift stores, consignment stores and resellers of used children's toys and other used children's products, on the other hand, are not required to certify that the toys/products meet the safety standards. However, the CPSC's statement does say that resellers "cannot sell children’s products that exceed the lead limit" and that they should "avoid" products that may have excess lead. Basically, if they do end up selling these products, they "could face civil and/or criminal penalties", according to the statement. In other words, the CPSC is giving the resellers the power of making a decision, based on their experience, whether or not the products they are selling contain lead.

In my opinion, thrift stores and other resellers are still going to be in a dilemma, whether to sell or not to sell toys anymore. It's not an easy task to find out which toys are safe and which aren't, without actual toy testing. So, even if they are not required to conduct toy testing, it really doesn't make much of a difference to their current situation. They still cannot sell toys which violate the law and my question is, how do they find out which toys are safe and which ones aren't?