New Manufacturing Regulations

I am, as you're probably well aware by now, a huge proponent of shopping used.  Thrift stores, junk shops, pawn shops, and garage sales:  If they have what I want, I'm buying it.  Over the past few years, we've suffered through a scary number of issues dealing with lead and other dangerous chemicals being found in children's toys and clothing, most of those incidents dealing with toys/clothing manufactured overseas.  This past fall, Congress did something about it, though without consulting manufacturing industry experts and without the hearings and testimony that normally accompany sweeping changes in policy.  I call it "see, we're doing something," without taking the time to make that "something" practical and effective.

The resulting new regulations, which are scheduled to go into effect on 1 February 2009 are broad, vague, and outrageously expensive.  They require rigorous testing of ANYTHING that a child 12 years or younger might come in contact with.  They also dramatically reduce the tolerance of lead in these items.   The current allowable standard for lead is 600 ppm.  Come 1 February, the new standard will be *90* ppm.  This, in and of itself is a good thing.  There is a lot of lead floating around and lead does cause developmental delays in young children.  Reducing their exposure is an excellent public health strategy.  

However, the new regulations are *not* retroactive at this time.  This means anything made prior to 1 February 2009 cannot be sold legally because it hasn't undergone the new test procedures.  Further, they apply to items manufactured overseas AND domestically, at all levels of production, from work at home moms to huge corporations.  

The new regulations require testing of absolutely anything a child 12 and younger might come in contact with.  This includes obvious items like children's clothing and toys.  But it also includes buttons, snaps, and zippers.  It includes things like pianos.

Third, the new regulations do not allow for third party testing; defined in the following way.  A sewing factory cannot take the manufacturer of purchased fabric at their word that the fabric tests within the allowable limits.  The sewing factory has to test the fabric themselves.  They also have to test all notions (snaps, buttons, zippers, interfacing, elastic, bows, lace, etc) themselves.  I suspect this is out of fear that at each stop along the way, a manufactured item could pick up lead from the environment.

Finally, the testing required by these new regulations is insanely expensive.  An example I came across last night is that it costs a clothing manufacturer $30,000 to test lead in ten pieces of clothing in three different colors (30 pieces all together).  And that's just for lead.  The other chemicals that have to be tested for are 3 times as expensive!

these regs affect me on a somewhat personal level.  My parents run two businesses.  The Strip Shop, which does furniture refinishing and barely runs in the black and Neff's Piano Shop, which sells a full range of pianos from low costs used pianos to high end imports and keeps them in business.  If these new regulations actually go into, and stay in, effect, my parents will have to test every piano they buy direct from the factory and they will no longer be able to sell used pianos because the used ones were not manufactured with the new tolerances in mind.  The expense of testing alone will probably put the shop out of business.  Even if they can afford that testing, they'll lose a large percentage of their market because not everyone can afford the expensive pianos they showcase in the front window.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say the new regulations were brought in precisely to force people to buy from large corporations instead of bypassing the system to buy at garage sales (illegal if one wishes to stringently enforce the code), through WAHM's (how many WAHM's can afford the testing?), and thrift shops (selling clothes and toys made before the new regs went into effect, oh my!).  Since the corporations directly or indirectly support both major political parties, it would be in the best interest of the government to boost the profit of these corporations to ensure that the parties get further monetary support.

Please please please contact your representatives in office and explain to them why these regs are a very bad idea!