WARNING: Toxic Toys on Shelves THIS Holiday Season!!

If you are like most parents, you keep track of toy recalls and listen to the news for information on specific toys that you should avoid buying for this reason or that reason. I mean, who doesn't want the toys their children play with to be as safe as possible? Right?

Well, an organization called HealthyToys.org has done some research and the conclusions are shocking. Why? Because some products on shelves this Holiday Season will be illegal to sell in February. Yeah, you read that correctly.

Even more shocking? We're not only talking about toys made in China.

According to a press release that was published on Wednesday December 3, 2008, The Ecology Center, a Michigan-based nonprofit organization, and partners across the country today released the 2nd annual consumer guide to toxic chemicals in toys at HealthyToys.org. Researchers tested over 1,500 popular children's toys for lead, cadmium, arsenic, PVC and other harmful chemicals in time for this year's holiday shopping season. One in three toys tested were found to contain "medium" or "high" levels of chemicals of concern.

In February 2009, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is changing it's regulations with respect to chemicals in toys such that they will be illegal to sell.

Here are some highlights from the HealthyToys.org findings:

• Lead is Still in Toys - HealthyToys.org found lead in 20% of all the products tested this year, including 54 products (3.5%) that exceed the current 600 ppm recall threshold for lead-based paint, and the soon-to-be national standard for all children's products.


• It's Not Just China - HealthyToys.org has not found a consistent correlation between the country of manufacture and the presence of toxic chemicals in toys. 21% of toys from China and 16% of those from all other countries had detectable levels of lead in 2008. 17 toys manufactured in the U.S. were sampled and 35% of those had detectable levels of lead.


• It's Not Just Lead - HealthyToys.org found a significant number of toys containing cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and bromine.


• Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC / Vinyl) - HealthyToys.org identified products made with PVC plastic by measuring their chlorine content. 27% of toys (excluding jewelry) tested this year by HealthyToys.org were made with PVC.


• Jewelry - Jewelry remains the most contaminated product category tested. Children's jewelry is five-times more likely to contain lead above 600 ppm than other products.


• The Good News – The good news is that 62% (954) of the products tested contain LOW levels of chemicals of concern, and 21% (324) of all products contain NO chemicals of concern. These findings show that manufacturers can and should make toys free of unnecessary toxic chemicals.

Want to search for a toy and see if it's on the list of "bad" toys? Click here.

This is just another reason that you might want to think about going "green" this season!!