Mommy Goes Green

It seems like lead in children’s products are all the rage right now.  Juice and fruit may be new news but lead in kid’s products isn’t new – it’s just getting more widespread. 

The Good Housekeeping Research Institute (the magazine’s product testing laboratory) released a report showing that kid’s jewelry from Target, Claire’s and Walmart all had lead in them.  And it’s not just the cheapy Dollar Store jewelry.  It’s jewelry labeled ‘sterling silver’, licensed character jewelry like Disney, and jewelry labeled for children over age 7.  An earring set from Walmart had 124 times the lead limit and the Disney jewelry had 47 times the lead limit.   Remember, there is no safe limit of lead exposure for kids.  Most of the jewelry also contained cadmium.  The GHRI recommends that parents avoid purchasing any inexpensive jewelry for children.  

Unfortunately, lead has been found in hundreds (thousands?) of other products designed for children.  The Daily Green keeps a running list, with photos, that you can review to make sure you don’t have these products in your home.   It’s in everything from pacifier clips to glasses,  books, balls and hockey sticks.  Today’s recall was kid’s belts from Target.

So what’s the next step?  Do you dump all the jewelry and painted toys in your house?   Ban products from China?  Chill out and relax?

I rely on SafeMama for toy recall information and over the weekend, they reported on the Mattel and Fisher Price toy recall and settlement.  So, I headed on over to see if any our toys were in the recall and sure enough, on page 21 (of 51 pages) were a set of Dora figurines we had sitting in the toybox right in front of us. Fortunately, I combed through the rest of the 51 pages of recalled toys and didn’t see anything else ( yet ). 

It’s so frustrating to find one set of toys on the list knowing that there are likely other toys in our house with lead – we just haven’t found out yet. While we would rather have a few high quality toys over a large quantity of cheaply made, potentially toxic toys, with birthdays and holidays, they are bound to come in the house.

WHAT TO DO:

1.  Look through the list of recalled toys.

2.  Submit a form on the Mattel website – they will email you a brochure to help you identify toys in the recall and a pre-paid return label to send back any affected toys.  If your product is affected, you will get a voucher for the retail price good for any Mattel or Fisher Price toy ( do we really want more toys from this company?)

3.  Buy toys from manufacturers of high quality, non-toxic toys like Green Toys, Haba, Kidkraft, or Sprig Toys.