TOXIC -F REE LEGACY COALITION                 FEBRUARY, 29 2008

This summer, manufacturers recalled millions of toys because of dangerous lead paint.  Unfortunately, lead has turned out to be only the start of parents’ worries as closer scrutiny of toys and other children’s products has revealed other potentially harmful chemicals that are linked to reproductive problems, learning disabilities, hormone problems, and cancer.  The federal government has been slow to act.  Washington State must take action now to protect children from toxic chemicals by passing the Children’s Safe Products Act of 2008.

Protect children from lead, cadmium, and phthalates in products they use everyday.

•The bill prohibits the sale of children’s products containing lead at more than 90 ppm (parts per million), beginning July 1, 2009, and then at 40 ppm beginning July 1, 2010. The 40 ppm limit for lead is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and is far more protective of children than the current federal standard of 600 ppm lead in paint.

•The bill prohibits the sale of children’s products containing cadmium at more than 40 ppm (parts per million), beginning July 1, 2009.

•The bill prohibits the sale of children’s products containing any combination of six specific phthalates at more than 100 ppm, beginning July 1, 2009. These six phthalates have been banned in children’s products in the European Union since 1999 and were banned in California last year.

•Children’s products addressed by the bill include toys, cosmetics and jewelry intended for children under the age of twelve, or any product designed or intended for teething, feeding, or clothing a child. Products such as certain electronic products, batteries, and chemistry sets are not covered.

•Retailers who unknowingly sell restricted products will not be held liable.

Provide consumers with information to make safer product choices for their children.

•The bill requires manufacturers of children’s products to report whether their product contains a “chemical of high concern to children” to the Department of Ecology. Ecology will develop this list through rulemaking.

•The Department of Ecology is required to publish the manufacturer’s information on a website along with information on available safer alternatives to the chemical.

•The Department of Health must educate parents, child care providers, and health professionals about toxic chemicals in infant and children’s products.

Put Washington on track to addressing the many other hazardous chemicals in children’s products.

•The bill requires Ecology to identify chemicals that are of high concern for children and the children’s products or product categories that may contain them. These chemicals are those linked to developmental toxicity, cancer, reproductive harm, or hormone disruption that are present in our bodies, our homes, our drinking water, or our consumer products.

•Ecology must report their findings on the chemicals and products, along with policy recommendations on how to best regulate chemicals in products, to the Legislature by January 1, 2009.