Zatera Ul

….and finish the MN Senate recount shenanigans (probably Franken will succeed in stealing the election) so I can write to my Senator and tell him that the first thing he needs to do is get H.R. 4040 (the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act [CPSIA]–summary here) repealed. This legislation was Congress’ see-we’re-doing-something about the lead-tainted-Chinese-toy scandal, and requires manufacturers of children’s products (including U.S. ones, from Etsy sellers on up; children means up to age 12 and children’s products means anything that children will use) to put their products through lead testing, and bans the sale of products containing more than a certain amount of phthalates. The CPSC website is remarkably unclear about just what will and will not be exempt from these requirements. Probably they are still working on making up the real rules. But clearly there will be a huge impact, especially on craftspeople and small businesses–the testing will cost hundreds or thousands of dollars per product once the requirement for third-party testing is phased in. And it’s the products and their individual, not the individual materials used, that have to pass the tests. (Apparently a few natural materials will be exempt from testing, if they remain unpainted and undyed.) Also there will be an enormous impact on thrift and consignment stores and all other resellers, since sale of any products that are not in compliance with the CPSIA is banned. All retailers are responsible for testing their existing inventory and yanking the non-complying products off the shelves by the time the law goes into effect.

Fortunately, there will only be a small effect on the crafts business that I’m slowly beginning to develop. My focus was already more on creating patterns and instructions than in mass-producing handmade products. I just won’t try to sell my prototypes of items for children.

But I’m not happy about this law at the household level–practically all of the children’s clothes, and at least half of the toys, that we have were pre-used. If we have to buy everything new and certified, that would hurt some.

The CPSIA goes into effect Feb. 10 (called “National Bankruptcy Day” by some), with some of the specific requirements being phased in over time.

SmartMama has some good posts on this. It seems she does X-ray fluorescence testing (lead detection) for a living. (I wish she would fix her site to allow opening links in a new Firefox tab, though!)