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Toy
Safety Article: The information you need to make safe toy choices and
valuable tips on what you as parents and caregivers
can do to protect
your children from unsafe toys!
Playing Safe
By Sharon Jacobsen
Do you really want your child to enjoy playing with a toy that was
made on the other side of the world by people who are no more than
children themselves, and paid 30 cents an hour - a paltry sum that can
barely sustain them? Unfortunately, all too often, that's exactly what
you're doing.
I'm not suggesting that anybody who does this is uncaring and
selfish - when we buy these toys it's usually because we don't know any
better. After all, the big toy manufacturers are hardly going to tell
us, are they?
Manufacture
So why is this allowed to go on? How can the toy giants get away with it?
Quite easily. Thanks to the way these factories are monitored,
owners are warned of inspections beforehand and have time to 'clean up
their act'.
While the Toy Industry Association of America has developed
regulations regarding the safety of children's toys, they've done
little to improve the situation for the unfortunate children who are
forced to make them.
Their website explains that since a large percentage of toys sold in
the US are produced in China, as far back as in 1996 the TIA developed
a program to teach Chinese toy manufacturers US toy safety standards to
ensure that imported toys met US requirements.
Videos and manuals covering safety in the factory and working
conditions were developed, as well as fundamental health and hygiene
practices, basic fire protection and ways to ensure toy factory
compliance with laws. However, there's no mention of ongoing monitoring
and as long as factory owners are allowed to operate without being
properly supervised, little is likely to change.
A report released by UNICEF in 2000 revealed that child workers in
developing countries were hidden in closets or boxes when inspectors
arrived to examine the premises. Four years had passed but children
were still being exploited. There's no evidence to suggest the
situation is any better today and until the toy company's put pressure
on the manufacturers to improve conditions, the likelihood of anything
improving is practically non-existent.
Plastic & PVC
Plastic toys, and especially those made of PVC, can contain harmful
chemicals such as phthalates, believed to be responsible for liver and
kidney damage, as well as changing testicle development in young boys.
Some toys contain up 55 percent phthalates by weight. This affects
the workers as they've been found to have a 200 times greater risk of
developing liver cancer.
Choose wooden toys instead. As long as they're made from sustainable
sources and have been painted with safe paints, they're far kinder to
both those who make them as well as being friendlier to the
environment. And they last longer, too. Just type "wooden toys from
sustainable sources" into your favorite search engine and you'll be
presented with a list of online suppliers.
By buying plastic and PVC toys for your children you're indirectly
participating in the deaths of children who have never known the luxury
of playing with toys. Do you really want to be a part of that?
Sharon Jacobsen is a professional freelance writer living in South
Cheshire, England. Her areas of special interest are environmental and
social issues, two subjects that very often cross.
If you'd like to contact Sharon, please visit her website at http://www.sharon-jacobsen.co.uk
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sharon_Jacobsen
http://EzineArticles.com/?Playing-Safe&id=52088
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