Did you know Congress has passed a bill that come February 10, 2009 may end up making most if not all of your favorite handmade childrens boutiques close, online and locally?

 

We are talking abut the CPSIA

 (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act)

The Issue:
In 2007, large toy manufacturers who outsource their production to China and other developing countries violated the public's trust. They were selling toys with dangerously high lead content, toys with unsafe small part, toys with improperly secured and easily swallowed small magnets, and toys made from chemicals that made kids sick.  Almost every problem toy in 2007 was made in China.

The United States Congress rightly recognized that the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) lacked the authority and staffing to prevent dangerous toys from being imported into the US. So, they passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August, 2008.  Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and requires toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number. 

All of these changes will be fairly easy for large, multinational toy manufacturers to comply with. Large manufacturers who make thousands of units of each toy have very little incremental cost to pay for testing and update their molds to include batch labels. 

For small American, Canadian, and European toymakers and manufacturers of children's products, however, the costs of mandatory testing will likely drive them out of business.

The CPSIA simply forgot to exclude the class of children's goods that have earned and kept the public's trust: Toys, clothes, and accessories made in the US, Canada, and Europe.  The result, unless the law is modified, is that handmade children's products will no longer be legal in the US.

If this law had been applied to the food industry, every farmers market in the country would be forced to close while Kraft and Dole prospered.

Overview

We're all for strengthening the safety standards of mass-produced toys, clothes, and accessories made in China, and banning toxins like phthalates and lead. But this year, congress passed the ill-conceived Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act, a law which is supposed to go into effect on Feb. 10,2009 and will absolutely decimate the small toy manufacturers, independent artisans, and HAND MADE crafters who have already earned the public trust.

With this act supposedly going into effect February 10 2009 so many people we love will be affected: Moms, like ourselves, who hand make beautiful hair accessories, tutus, clothing,  who sew beautiful handmade dolls out of home, artists who have spent decades hand-carving trucks and cars out of natural woods, that guy at the craft show who sold you the cute handmade puzzle--even larger US companies who employ local workers and have not once had any sort of safety issue will no longer be able to sell their goods. Not without investing tens of thousands of dollars into third-party testing and labeling, just to prove that toys and accessories that never had a single toxic chemical in them still don't have a single toxic chemical in them.

 

*Find your congress personand senators and write a letter like the sample here. (this is VERY important, we must all contact them!)

 

*Vote for AMENDING the law to help protect small business to stay in business.

Here>>  http://www.change.org/ideas?order=top  (please vote!!)

Scroll down this page to "Save Small Business from CPSIA"
Click on the little blue vote button to vote then please let a message to let everyone know how you feel about this!

With enough votes it will be presented to President Obama in January!