Consumers could face higher toy prices

This article does not inspire my confidence in the media:

Shoppers have become accustomed to cheap playthings from China because Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other discounters have waged cost-cutting campaigns. Critics say real safeguards were sacrificed to keep prices low.

I have been selling sidewalk chalk for about 12 years now, and the safety regime has not changed much at all. I have never had a customer ask for a better price in return for a lowered safety requirement. In fact, pretty much every customer is completely anal about safety and asks for a test report to make sure they are in compliance with national requirements.

The price for the product has fallen tremendously, but that was mainly due to switching production to China and the rise of many more competitors. The problem now is that unscrupulous factories have been getting test reports done for hand-made samples using the correct paints and then using banned materials for actual production runs. The only way to stop that is to test each batch.

Most of the rising costs come from emergency third-party testing in the U.S. by both makers and sellers as they aim to root out any unsafe products, analysts say.

The cost for testing lead in a toy is NT$ 995 / color for a Taiwan lab. It's not exactly going to break the bank, even if you are testing more often then before. I can't see a 10% hike based on that alone. I suspect the industry thinks this is a great excuse to claw back some margin.

The U.S. Toy Industry Association supports a federal requirement to make safety testing and inspection mandatory and is working with the American National Standards Institute to develop industrywide safety procedures. But during Wednesday's Congressional hearing on toy safety, senators urged even more stringent measures including stepping up fines for selling or failing to report dangerous items.

There already is an industrywide standard for lead - ASTM E1613-04 / E1645-01 - which is 600 ppm. Making safety testing and inspection mandatory for each batch is probably a good idea. If you want to be really safe, make sure the testing is not done in China and the people who choose the random product to test are not being bribed.

One very important thing to remember is that everyone in the industry knows that you cannot use lead paint. All the contracts will mention following safety standards and require test reports. I have had vendors tell me they wouldn't even know where to buy lead paint if they wanted to as it is pretty much black-listed. This is not some case where suppliers are ignorant. It's willful fraud. Personally, I don't know how they sleep at night.

p.s. There are hand-held lead detectors. You'd think the big toy companies would have invested in some of those and used them during their normal QC inspections.