Children's clothing reselling becoming risky business
5:49 p.m. Tuesday, January 6, 2009
For 18 years, Karen Shaffer has been reselling children's clothes and toys at Mommy and Me. But that might have to change.
"Not only items manufactured after February the tenth must be in compliance with the new lead standards, but all children's products must be compliant," said Shaffer.
As part of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, any product sold after February 10 must be under the 600 parts per million limit for lead. At that time, all children's products sold must be certified. New products will be certified before being shipped to stores.
But for selling older products, like here at Mommy and Me, or at your next garage sale, the cost of that certification is out of reach.
"The equipment to buy, the XRF guns to do the lead testing, are $35,000," said Shaffer.
As the act stands now, used kids toys and clothing will be considered hazardous. Something as simple as selling a toy becomes a lot more complicated.
"At this point, I am not sure what that impact will be on me. Some resell store owners feel that as of February 10th, if the law is not amended, it will mean that their inventory is all of a sudden 'hazardous,'" said Shaffer.
But Safe Kids Kansas says the intention of the law is to keep unsafe toys off the shelves, not to hassle second-hand retailers.
"The first time purchase of these products, as they become safer, then as the secondhand toys move into the secondhand retailers area, then they will be safer," said Cherie Sage of Safe Kids Kansas.
The new law does raise plenty of questions, though.
"At this point, we have no clear guidelines on how to comply," said Shaffer.
We spoke with an attorney from Safe Kids today. He says as long as second-hand stores make a good faith effort to only sell safe toys, it's unlikely they will be prosecuted, even though selling uncertified toys is technically illegal under the new law.
You can read the entire law and access brief summaries of sections of the law and frequently asked questions at www.cpsc.gov
Comments
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Jan. 9, 2009 at 4:23 p.m. (Suggest removal)RebeccaV (anonymous)
I think that this law is stupid. I never buy brand new clothes for my children because they grow fast and it would be a waste of money. Another reason I believe that this not a good idea is because the economy is in such a dire situation. What are we supposed to do? Go out and buy new stuff and throw the old away. This law will make America very wasteful. I have a 2yr old and another little one on the way, I have a baby swing that was a gift for my first child that was $130 does this mean I have to throw it away and all my other baby stuff after I am done with this. I think there needs to be rules about lead because it does affect alot of children, however they need to read the facts and the government needs to revamp the law!!
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