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Toxic Toy Alert
The Washington Toxics Coalition is headed by Gregg Small who directs an
earth-based program and the prevention of pollution located in Seattle.
He tells the heart breaking story in relation to simple everyday toys that are extremely dangerous, and the news mostly is scattered
through out the media like a snow storm in summer. If you didn't see it,
it will be gone and over soon, and you'll miss all the reasons for our
problems no talking heads will share.
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Protect our children from toxic toys
23 August 2007 - By Gregg Small -
seattletimes.nwsource.com
Over the past several months, millions of popular toys
have been recalled because of high levels of lead, a highly toxic
element, especially for children. Thomas the Train, Dora the Explorer
and some Sesame Street toys were among those recalled.
A recent headline from The Seattle Times perhaps said it best:
"Recalls prompt parents to ask: Is any toy safe?" Sadly, it is a
very good question.
As a father of a 3-month-old boy and a 2-½-year-old girl, I am
dismayed by these incidents. My daughter Lillian loves Sesame Street,
Dora, and Thomas the Train, just like many other kids. Her aunts and
uncles and grandparents are quite fond of sending toys of these
popular characters to her, and she plays enthusiastically with all of
them. The idea that as a father I need to worry about whether my child
is being poisoned while she is playing with toys is shocking.
Even more shocking is the fact that I can examine them all I want
and not know which toys are safe and which ones are not. I have
worked on pollution issues for more than a decade and am well versed
in the alphabet soup of toxic chemicals and their health impacts. But,
I don't know any more than my daughter or my son Jude about whether
there are chemicals in the rubber ducky that we play with in the
bathtub every night that could impair their learning or cause
reproductive problems later in life.
There is simply no information available about what toxic chemicals
are in the products that we buy for our children. And, there is no
government agency tasked to ensure they are safe.
Not only are the products unregulated, so are the toxic chemicals.
Fewer than 5 percent of toxic chemicals have been reviewed by
government agencies, despite the fact that there is a growing body of
scientific evidence linking low levels of exposure of these chemicals
to serious health impacts. Amazingly, some chemicals that are used
in children's products, like phthalates, a chemical that impacts
reproduction, have been tightly regulated in Europe, but remain for
sale here in the United States.
Unfortunately, our children are paying the price for the failure of
government to take action on dangerous chemicals in their rattles and
race cars. It's time for a change.
Washington state has long been a leader in protecting our health and
environment from the impacts of toxic chemicals such as the lead that
is tainting so many of our children's toys. In 2000, Washington became
the first state in the nation to establish a program to phase out and
clean up some of the most dangerous chemicals, including mercury and
dioxin.
Last year, the Department of Ecology took strong action to address the
problem of lead in children's lunch boxes. And earlier this year,
thanks to the Legislature, Washington became the first state in the
nation to pass a bill to phase out the use of the toxic flame
retardants (PBDEs) that are rapidly building up in breast milk, our
bodies, and in Puget Sound.
Washington state needs to continue this proud tradition by taking firm
steps to protect our children from toxic chemicals in toys. We can
start by:
• Requiring that manufacturers of children's products sold in
Washington state disclose the chemical content of their products;
• Requiring manufacturers of children's products to use safer
chemicals and materials; and,
• Providing support to businesses to make the products that we need
without polluting our children's bodies and environment.
I look forward to the day when I can go to bed knowing that the toys
that my children are playing with are safe. I hope that I don't have
to wait until I am giving my grandkids their own Dora the Explorer and
Elmo dolls for that to happen.
Gregg Small is the executive director of the Washington Toxics
Coalition, www.watoxics.org, a
nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to protect public health
and the environment from the impacts of toxic pollution.
Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
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Read:
Consumerism and programming: How
we feed the monsters to find out who makes these products, and
where they come from, and how they are pathologically perceived and
used. |
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The
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