CPSIA - National Bankrupsy Day - Feb. 10th

[jrosebud]

Anyone else following the new lead laws for items used by children?  As of now, on February 10th all items for children 12 and under will have to be tested for lead before they can be sold.  The law is retroactive and will affect resale markets.  In an already struggling economy, this is going to put handcrafters and resalers of children's items out of business.

And all of the parents who rely on selling their children's clothing to help pay for other gently-used clothes in larger sizes will suffer.  What are we supposed to do with outgrown clothing?  We can't resell it at consinment stores or garage sales.  If we donate it to places like Goodwill, they can't resell it.  Into the landfill it goes, along with outgrown toys, bikes, strollers, books, dvds, etc.

I'm all for trying to prevent harm from coming to children, but many scientists are speaking out against the bill, stating that it's misguided and ultimately ineffective.

Anyone up for contacting your representatives to try to get reasonable changes and clarifacations made to this monster before my daughter's hand-me-downs become contraband?

http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/74940-Congress-bans-kids-from-libraries/

http://www.narts.org/CPSIA_Info.htm

http://reformcpsia.org/2009/01/class-action-lawsuit/

[VanReal]

This appears to be affecting products manufactured after February 10, 2009 and will have to be inpected and properly labeled.  It is certainly going to cause a problem for manufacturing children's items and will again increase our consumer costs.  I predict some clever ways around this will be found.  As far as the resale shops go I am not that worried, I know they don't have the manpower or funding to pick through our resale shops looking for items manufactured after this date that have not been tested.  This is interesting though, is there an epidemic of lead poisening occuring from children under 12 sucking on cloth diapers?