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Toys

The Backstory

With mounting concerns over lead in toys, added to worries about hormone-disrupting chemicals in plastic, parents are understandably questioning the seemingly innocent toys they use to educate and entertain their kids. In July 2004, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recalled all metal toy jewelry sold in vending machines--150 million pieces-- that was imported by AA Global Industries Inc., Brand Imports, Cardinal Distributing Co. and L.M. Becker and Co. Inc. after it was found to contain lead, poisoning one young child. But government can be slow to protect children, sometimes not moving until after harm has been done. That same year, toys not appearing in CPSC's Top 10 included a Spiderman figure with a potentially neurotoxic mercury battery that was included in some cereal boxes.

Plastic

The worst plastic used in children's toys, from both an environmental and health standpoint, is polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. The manufacture of PVC creates and disperses potent carcinogens called dioxins. Released into air or water, dioxins enter the food chain, where they accumulate in fatty tissues and contaminate the food sources. Dioxin may also affect children's development and damage immune functions. Furthermore, vinyl chloride, the chemical used to make PVC, is a known human carcinogen, according to the World Health Organization, and workers exposed to this chemical have disproportionately high levels of some types of cancer.

Another problem with PVC is that it often contains phthalates, chemical softeners used to make the plastic soft and pliable. The chemicals have cropped up in teethers and soft squeeze toys for young children, beach balls, bath toys, dolls and other products. Considered "hormone disruptors," phthalates have been found to affect reproductive development and cause obesity, and they've been found to cause asthma and other respiratory problems.

Because they're not bonded to the plastic, phthalates can migrate out of toys and onto the hands (and into the mouths) of children. The CPSC has asked that U.S. manufacturers remove phthalates from baby pacifiers and toys for children under three years old, and the European Union has already banned phthalates in toys. Many companies are removing them, and several states, including California and Maine, are initiating legislation that would ban the sale of any children's products containing phthalates.

Lead

Another additive to PVC, lead has been cropping up in toys with unrelenting frequency this year. Hundreds of thousands of toy box staples, including Barbie dolls, Fisher-Price locomotives and Thomas the Tank Engines have been recalled due to violations of lead paint standards. Cadmium, also a heavy metal, can be released into the environment during manufacture and as a toy degrades. Known to cause cancer in humans, cadmium levels build up in the body over time and remain in the body. Lead is associated with a host of learning disabilities and behavior disorders, and even low exposures can carry lifelong effects.

Lead is also found in the paint of some old wood and metal toys, especially in imports and sets of metal soldiers. Because paint may flake, and lead from soldiers may rub onto children's hands during play, the FDA warns against these kinds of toys.

Cotton and Wool

Cotton and wool can be safer alternatives, but the heavy doses of insecticides, herbicides and fertilizers used in conventional cotton agriculture are heavy polluters of groundwater and the oceans. In fact, cotton accounts for a quarter of the world's use of insecticides. According to the EPA, seven of the top 15 pesticides used on U.S. cotton crops are potential or known human carcinogens. When it comes to wool, sheep dipping to remove parasites such as lice and ticks can taint groundwater with ecosystem-damaging insecticides that are potentially hazardous to workers. What's more, the cotton, wool and synthetics used in stuffed and soft fabric toys are often stain- and moth-proofed. Coloring and treating these fabrics also involves harmful chemicals. Azo dyes can be carcinogenic. And dyeing can release chlorine, chromium and other toxic substances into waterways, where they enter human bodies through drinking water.

Wood

The wood used in many puzzles and other children's toys is not solid but rather many thin strips of wood or particles glued together. The glues that form pressed woods such as plywood and particleboard give off toxic fumes like formaldehyde. Formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, and other VOCs from glues are common in plywood and pressed-wood toys, as well as some hardwood products. VOCs can irritate your child's eyes, skin and throat, and it can cause nausea and lethargy.

Adding to these concerns is the environmental damage wrought by clear-cutting, which remains a significant threat to a wide variety of animals and plants that inhabit woodland areas. And in this age of global warming, no parent wants to think their child's toy is contributing to the release of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emitted by dying trees.