States Seek Tougher Toy Safety Standards: Wal-Mart Has No Comment
Growing concern about the safety of toys sold in the U.S. has lawmakers, retailers and parents wondering how to address the problem. While big retailers like Wal-Mart undoubtedly play a huge role in the problem, other players are stepping up to try to address the issue. Washington state has just passed a bill setting strict restrictions for lead content in children’s products. Washington lawmakers have the best intentions for kids in mind, and major toy retailers have predictably balked at the prospective regulations. Though Washington’s bill is a great step forward, toys are already exceeding existing lead standards, indicating the problem is not so much with the laws but with compliance. How does Washington intend to enforce these standards? Will the state increase funding for toy testing and inspection?
States Alter Rules of Game On Safety for Toy Makers [Wall Street Journal]
In a move that has alarmed the toy industry, lawmakers in the state of Washington have overwhelmingly passed a bill that would set the toughest restrictions in the nation on the lead content of children’s products.
The bill would reduce the allowable level of lead in toys and other goods to 90 parts per million—and possibly as low as 40 parts per million, the recommended limit of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and far below the current federal standard of 600 parts per million. It would also set tough limits on cadmium, a metal used in paints and plastics, and on plastic-softening chemicals called phthalates that have been linked to childhood developmental problems, in some studies.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, March 25 | 0 comments | Permalink
Friday Blog Round-Up: March Madness Edition
THE BRAIN DAMAGE JOKES JUST WRITE THEMSELVES
The Center for Environmental Health released findings this week that several Hannah Montana products - manufactured in China and sold at Wal-Mart - contain high levels of lead. While it seems all too easy to link the Hannah Montana phenomenon and brain damage, the truth is that it’s not just HM products that pose a risk to young’uns. This is only the latest in a long line of product warnings about merchandise made in China and sold at Wal-Mart. A pattern, perhaps?
Hannah Montana’s Killing Spree: It’s Not Over Yet [Idolator]
Not content with potentially maiming fans who would dare to buy boots branded with her name, Miley Ray Cyrus/Hannah Montana is continuing her reign of merchandise terror, this time through the use of toxic levels of lead paint in somewhat-innocent-looking vinyl purses.
Do Not Chew Your Hannah Montana Toys [Glitterati]
Miley Cyrus may be a good influence on her young fans, but Miley-branded products - manufactured in China for Disney and sold at Wal*Mart - are loaded with lead, according to CNN and the Center For Environmental Health. Oops.
Don’t Lick Miley Cyrus! [E! Online]
Chinese-made Hannah Montana products - like her backpack and purses - have been found to contain up to 14 times the federal standard for lead in paint, the Center for Environmental Health says.
After the jump, we can’t get enough of the celebrity gossip!, Dell moves in to China and Wal-Mart gets taken to task for selling Guitar Hero.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, March 21 | 3 comments | Permalink
Toy Safety Concerns Persist at Wal-Mart
Concerns about toy safety took a big bite out of holiday sales this year, and toy makers are working to reassure consumers. This video from CNN discusses the industry’s efforts, and how toy makers are using safety as a selling point.
The story comes out on a day when CPSC director Nancy Nord chastised the toy industry for ineffective safety procedures. Nord placed the bulk of the blame for unsafe toys on manufacturers, but retailers like Wal-Mart and Toys ‘R’ Us play a major role in the problem. Both companies have announced plans to increase toy safety standards, effectively mandating industry-wide changes.
These moves seem to avoid the real root of the problem. Wal-Mart’s toys are already failing to meet the company’s requirements, and raising standards won’t address the fact that toys are produced in fly-by-night factories and too often not tested for chemicals. Toy makers should be testing toys more frequently and more thoroughly, a process which Wal-Mart has said little about. As it stands, Wal-Mart relies on a single laboratory for its product safety testing. The lab - Consumer Testing Laboratories in Bentonville, Ark. - is paid by Wal-Mart for its services, raising some questions about the lab’s objectivity. Not only has Wal-Mart failed to address these ethical problems, it has also neglected to increase or improve its testing practices.
Wal-Mart, Toys ‘R’ Us unveil new safety rules [CNN Money]
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, February 19 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Continues to Sell Controversial Baby Bottle
Outrage surrounding new reports on the safety of plastic used to make some baby bottles has parents angry at retailers like Wal-Mart. Concerns that bottle plastic leaches chemicals into baby formula have popped up in dozens of news sources over the last few days. Now, parents are pointing fingers at Wal-Mart for continuing to sell the products despite the dangers.
Despite more than two years of warnings about the possible dangers of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), manufacturers continue to widely use it to make baby bottles, toys and beverage containers, and stores like Wal-Mart, Target, and Toys “R” Us continue to carry the products, according to a new study from the Center for Health Environment and Justice, a Virginia-based environmental activist organization.
BPA is a synthetic sex hormone that mimics estrogen. Scientists have linked low doses of BPA to obesity, diabetes, thyroid disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer and other illnesses in lab tests on animals.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, February 08 | 1 comments | Permalink
The Problem with Wal-Mart’s Price Cuts
Wal-Mart’s cutting prices in hopes of boosting sales. This video from CNN explains that sourcing products from companies based in the United States would help even more. Click here for the video on CNN’s site.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, January 29 | 2 comments | Permalink
Retailers Must Take Responsibility for Product Safety, CPSC says
Amidst the seemginly endless toy recalls this past year, one question remains unanswered: who is ultimately responsible for ensuring the quality of consumer products in the United States? The head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Nancy Nord, is pointing to retailers. Chronically underfunded and increasingly understaffed, it’s almost impossible for the CPSC to inspect all the imports coming in from overseas. Instead, Nord hopes to focus the CPSC on domestic-made goods, as the agency was intended to do, and leave inspection of imported goods up to retailers like Wal-Mart. What do you think: who should be responsible for these products? Do retailers like Wal-Mart have any responsibility to ensure the quality of the goods they sell?
Safety Push Focuses on Retailers [Wall Street Journal]
Retailers may come under increased scrutiny from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the agency’s acting chairman said yesterday.
Nancy Nord said the shift in strategy is necessary because many of the 15,000 household products regulated by the agency are made abroad, not in the U.S. as most were when the agency was created in 1973. At that time, most of the agency’s enforcement efforts were focused on product manufacturers.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, January 08 | 9 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s XXX MP3 Players: Mistake or Malicious?
Just before Christmas, a story emerged about Daryl Hill, a father in Tennessee who purchased an mp3 player for his daughter, only to find out that the player was loaded with pornography. The incident scarred both Daryl and his daughter, but more disturbing is the fact that Daryl Hill’s story seems to be part of a series of similar complaints. A father in Florida found porn on the iPod he bought at Wal-Mart for his son, and parents in Chicago found porn on the Zune they purchased at Wal-Mart as well.
The bigger question here is how this content is getting on to supposedly “new” electronics. Perhaps Wal-Mart’s employees are reselling returned merchandise. This would be a direct violation of company policy and retail bylines, but an understandable effort on the part of managers to boost narrow profit margins. A more worrisome alternative is that employees are purposesfully sabotaging Wal-Mart’s merchandise. This could spell trouble for products across the board, and potentially dangerous consequences. Either way, treating employees better and staffing stores appropriately would help prevent situations like this in the future.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, January 04 | 39 comments | Permalink
Aisle of Misfit Toys
Corrine Compton got an unexpected surprise Christmas morning.
The 7-year-old opened up her Polly Pocket toy plane set—purchased at a Sumter, South Carolina Wal-Mart—and found a prison shank inside.
Corrine’s parents took the toy back to Wal-Mart and demanded an explanation for how a blade wrapped in electrical tape got inside their daughter’s toy. They walked out of the store without a replacement toy, refund or satisfactory response from Wal-Mart.
And the Comptons aren’t the only unhappy Wal-Mart customers this holiday season. Daryl Hill bought an MP3 player for his 10-year-old daughter at a Sparta, Tennessee Wal-Mart that was preloaded with pornography and explicit songs about using drugs.
These may sound like isolated incidents, but they’re the types of stories that happen all too often at Wal-Mart stores. When Wal-Mart lowers its prices, it’s lowering the quality and safety of its products too.
Visit RecallWalMart.com, watch Corrine’s story, and tell Wal-Mart’s CEO Lee Scott to put customers’ safety first:
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Posted by David Nassar, Executive Director on Thursday, January 03 | 3 comments | Permalink
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