Yet Another Interpretation of the Law Affecting Resellers of Children's Products
In February 2009, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) goes into effect, regulating the levels of lead and phthalates in children's products, including clothing and toys. There has been much concern over this bill, mainly concerning the sale of secondhand children's clothing and handmade toys. Yesterday, the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a statement clarifying the law regarding secondhand items.According to the CPSC, sellers of used children's products, including toys and clothing, are not required to test that the products meet the new safety standards for lead, however they cannot sell children's product that exceed the lead limit. Leading one to ask, "Well, how will resellers know if a product exceeds the lead limit?" The CPSC advises that resellers should avoid reselling products likely to have excessive lead content. For the phthalates, the law only applies to those children's products manufactured after February 10th. Which makes this all as clear as mud.
In any case, this is somewhat good news for resellers and for parents who obtain clothing via secondhand stores and sellers. One bad side effect of this interpretation is that conventional stores are allowed to continue to sell children's products that do not meet the new standards, as long as they were manufactured before February 10, 2009.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-09-2009 @ 5:14PM
Kathleen said...
Spoken too soon. Attorneys who specialize in the matter say it's a basic reiteration of the law.
Yesterday's PR regarding resale shops amounted to (as someone said) the law reiterated to read "telling your child they don't need to brush teeth, but spanking them if they have bad breath!" Resale stores will sell children's items at their own risk, namely $100,000 fines and five years in prison if they "guess" wrong. I don't imagine many resale shop owners are chemists or environmental engineers.
Besides, every single tax payer will be impacted if you consider the law's effect on schools. Can resale shops sell enough telescopes and microscopes, books, school supplies and educational materials for all the demand there will be? The people who sell those can't afford to sell them anymore because testing on this stuff runs -in some cases- up to $24,000 (yes, twenty four THOUSAND dollars) and there's not much point selling them if your gross sales are only $32,000 from which the cost of goods hasn't even been subtracted. There's a great video on youtube that explains more of the impact on everyone, whether they sew for charities or even have kids at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqKjJgdUZ3E&feature=channel_page
Btw, thanks for publicizing this! I also suggest visiting the War Room for up to the minute updates and focused activism. There's also the automated mailer to email legislators in one fell swoop. http://tinyurl.com/5hloos. Lastly, we are asking people to fill out the Economic Impact Survey http://bit.ly/Cdwv.
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1-09-2009 @ 5:14PM
Wacky Hermit said...
Not so. The CPSC General Counsel, Cheryl Falvey, has stated that while the phthalate requirement does not retroactively apply to inventory manufactured before 2/10, the lead requirement DOES. http://cpsc.gov/library/foia/advisory/320.pdf
And thrift stores are NOT off the hook; they don't have to test, but they still have to know their merchandise is under the acceptable lead level-- and how will they know that if they don't test? If they don't test, they'll have to roll the dice whether or not the product has lead-- and if they roll snake eyes, the hammer comes down on them hard. The CPSC is hoping we'll all back down if we think they are giving thrift stores a pass.
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1-09-2009 @ 5:25PM
Patricia said...
Thank you for your comment. I've amended the story above to try to make it more clear.
1-13-2009 @ 10:58AM
susan allport said...
Thought you would be interested in this short omega-3 video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIgNpsbvcVM
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