Posted by Fiona Saiter on Jan.25, 2010

©iStockphoto.com - Carmen Martínez Banús

It’s that time of year again, when the kids have received lots of great presents during the holidays and now it seems all you do is step over toys. Maybe it’s time to go through the toys and not just pick out ones they don’t play with to donate but also pick out ones that are unsafe to discard. Here are some reasons you may want to discard toys and places to check for toy safety.

Lead Paint

We’ve all heard about lead poisoning from the large Mattel toy recall in 2007 when according to MSN approximately 967,000 toys were recalled including Polly Pockets, Barbie, Sesame Street and even Thomas the Tank Engine. Another recall was for approximately 253,000 Sarge cars from the movie “Cars.”

Lead paint is banned in the US but the problem is about 80% of US toys are from China, notes MSN. Also toys that have been passed down in families sometimes have lead in them. Lead can be found in either the paint or in plastic. You can’t see or smell lead and a child is contaminated by normal play of putting items in their mouths or the lead can also get on the hands and then the child puts their hands in their mouth.

If you think your child has been exposed to Lead, remove the toy and ask your pediatrician for a blood lead test. You can also buy kits to test toys if you are really concerned about a specific toy, according to the CDC.

The best thing to do is watch out for recall notices or sign up on the CDC website to receive email notifications. You could also purchase toys from eco-friendly stores or toys made outside of China.

Healthystuff.org tested 700 toys in 2009 for toxic chemicals and found some good news: since 2007 they have tested over 4000 toys and toys with lead over today’s limits has reduced 67% since 2007 because of recalls from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The problem is they still show lead in 18% of the 669 toys tested.

PVC

Other countries have banned PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) from children’s toys because of health concerns and environmental impact. According to Wikipedia, PVC is not usually recycled because of the cost of regrinding it. Also the State of California is considering a bill to ban PVC in packaging due to health risks and because it can’t be recycled easily.

Healthystuff.org believes PVC is the worst plastic as far as it’s environmental effects and because it may be dangerous to our health. The health concerns associated with PVC are in the additives used to make PVC soft and some of those additives have been linked to liver and kidney damage, cancer, asthma, liver damage, and other health concerns.

Other Chemicals

Other chemicals that Healthystuff.org found in testing toys and children’s products were: cadmium, mercury, arsenic, lead and bromine. They found that 32% or 1/3 of the toys contained at least one of these chemicals. The website has a list of the toys and children’s products they found to have the most hazardous chemicals.

Choking Hazards

You often hear of toys being recalled because of choking hazards. One of the basic tests for checking to see if something is too small for a child who puts things in their mouth is to take a toilet roll tube and if the item can fit through, it’s too small. They also sell No Choke Tubes in some toys stores.

One toy you may remember being recalled for a chocking hazard was the Polly Pocket in 2007 for the small magnets that could come loose and be swallowed. The CPSC had many reports of the magnets coming loose.

Toy Safety Resources

You can check The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission website for recalls on different toys and baby items. They state they work to ensure the safety of consumer products and that they have contributed to a 30% decline in deaths and injuries from consumer products for the past 30 years. Here is a list of recalled toys to get you started, or do a search on their website at.

You can also check the results of the Healthystuff.org toxic toy test.

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Posted under Family, GDM Kids, Tweens, Teens.