Rant - Melissa & Doug toy recall in Canada

So now we can add Melissa & Doug to the list of China recalled toys. Although you wouldn't know that by looking at their website. In August of 2008 Canada issued a recall of the "Geometric Stacker" by Melissa and Doug and in September 2008 Canada issued a recall of the "Stacking Train" by Melissa and Doug. Testing by Health Canada revealed that the surface paint on the toy contains barium in excess of the allowable limit.

Why is barium even present in a toy manufactures facility? What purpose does it have?? When I looked up Barium in Wikipedia I see it is used in glassmaking, rat poisions, used for drilling oil wells, it gives fireworks their green color, but no where could I find why it would be present on a WOODEN TOY FOR TODDLERS. If someone could explain to me, please do so.

So when are parents going to wake up and see that these Chinese manufactures do NOT have our children's best interest at heart. How many tainted toys are going to be enough for everyone to stop buying these products?? Maybe we need to change the word 'tainted' to something more accurate like 'potentially lethal', maybe that will get peoples attention.

Rant - Save the Elephants!

Africa has allowed their stockpile of Elephant Ivory to be sold to the highest bidder. And they have allowed China to be one of these importers. China is already the largest buyer of ILLEGAL ivory and other endangered animals. Not to mention their human right violations and possible organ harvesting from religious prisoners amongst their own people.

The fact that CITES has allowed the sale of this ivory is unbelievable. This stock pile should have been destroyed years ago. Will you sign this petition against this move?
You can read more about it here and here


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The decision to sanction the sale of ivory to China is not only ill informed and irresponsible, it has potentially signed the death warrant for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of wild elephants in Africa

Elephants cannot speak for themselves and it is the responsibility of compassionate, caring and informed men and women to give a voice to elephants. We are therefore asking our supporters to sign a petition against the sanctioning of China as a legal buyer of ivory.

Sign Petition

We have already added our name to this petition and hope you will do the same. We would also urge you to copy and paste the statement below into an email to your friends and colleagues, so that they too can choose to sign this petition and speak out for elephants.

The author of this petition will present it to Gordon Brown, as well as representatives of the CITES standing committee.

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I'm also asking that you watch what you buy. If it is made in China put it back on the shelf, do you really need more cheap plastic crap in your house? By American, or for my Canadian friends and family, By Canadian. Same goes for my English friends. Buy and support your local merchants who are trying to make a living selling good NON TOXIC products and who don't use child labor.

Thank you,
Kim

Rant - Mattel did it again

So here we go a third recall of Mattel toys. This time it is Barbie and accessories, It's a Big Big World and GeoTrax toys. The Chairman and CEO of Mattel even has a video on their site saying how they are stepping up testing of their products and that the safety of our children is important to them. I think it's more along the lines of them wanting to keep the money coming in and not the other toy companies who don't use China Manufactures and have not had any recalls of their toys do to safety issues. Which is one reason why they are in China right, money?
Now like I said before I know not all Chinese people are to blame here. There are a few within these companies who are making decisions behind Mattel's back. But I am so tired of American Companies going outside of the US to have products made.
I for one have completely changed how I buy items for my family, have you?

Rave - Another great toy store

Today husband, baby girl and I visited another great Seattle Toy Store, Izilla Toys. We found these great vehicle toys from a line called Viking Toys. They are plastic with rubber wheels, if you have hardwood floors this is a MUST toy. It rolls like a dream. I don't remember where they were made exactly, Sweden maybe, but I know it was not China. Google them and buy them up!
Baby girl was having fun crawling around and looking at everything. I know future birthday and Christmas presents will be found there.

Dinner was at our favorite sushi restaurant Hana on Capitol Hill. Their California Rolls are the BEST!!! I ate 3 all by myself.

And we stopped at Top Ten so Hubby could see. Baby girl was again excited to see Rody Pony, she seems to love him. We picked up some wood blocks, made in USA and a toy boat made in Austria.

Rave - Alternative to Toys-R-Us

I've discovered a great toy store here in Seattle, Top Ten Toys. It was great seeing different toys made out of wood, not that junky cheep plastic stuff that will fill up our land fills someday. There still were a lot of toys made in China, but if you looked you could find things made in Germany, Italy & Austria to name a few.

I received a response from Haba toys regarding where their toys are made.
Thank you for contacting HABA USA where we as parents ourselves really do care about the products our company produces for our children.

In order for any company to provide as many product offerings as HABA currently does it would be nearly impossible to manufacture every single item within our own factories. We tried to for many years; however we had to expand our product selection in order to continue to provide our consumers what with new diversified products.

Nearly all of our wooden products are still made at our own factories in Germany. We use the natural beech and birch woods that are native to the area. In fact even if an item is final assembled in China, the wooden parts/pieces still come from our factories in Germany and are sent over to CHINA for final assembly. We don’t paint our products, we stain them.

The stains we use on our wooden products are all water based, non-toxic stains (also made in Germany). They are continually tested by an independent, third party laboratory to meet and/or exceed all of the European EN 71, CE and American ASTM safety standards. You can be assured that our stains used on our wooden products are safe. The stains are in fact edible; if your child is teething and he/she bites through the wood this poses no health risk whatsoever.

HABA is committed to healthy working environments and quality products for children, regardless if they are made at our own factories in Bad Rodach, Germany or at subcontracted factories in other countries, including CHINA. We are proud to be one of the few manufacturers using only the best producers in CHINA that are independently inspected and do not endorse unfair labor practices. The easiest way to share with you where our products are made is to provide you with the attached PDF file that is basically my wholesale pricelist (without the prices of course) but with the Country of Origin on each item. I hope this helps!

And a response from Hape Toys
I can understand your concern. Working so close to children and the many children in my life I take the safety of children extremely important. With all of the news as of late we are having a PR piece created about the safety and procedures of HaPe. I will also have a letter emailed to you to confirm the safety of our products signed by the owner himself. I hope this email will suffice in the meantime of waiting for the letter. The products we distribute here in North America they all used the German paint and passed all the rigorous safety tests and is lead free.

I feel a little safer purchasing toys from both of these companies but will probably still test them at home just to make sure.

Rant - Made in China

So another toy recall from Mattel, are we surprised? I'm not, and let me tell you that I am changing the way I buy my child's toys from now on. Sure most of us can now afford to buy our children the latest Elmo toy but at what cost? My child's health is not for sale to the lowest bidder. So tomorrow I am taking back her Fisher Price Elmo Giggles Remote that she got for her birthday and her Busy Zoo by Parents. Both made in China.

I was talking to a friend who has 2 children older than mine. She told me about Melissa and Doug & Ryan's Room and that they make good quality wood toys. I knew at home our daughter had received a Melissa and Doug toy as a gift. I was anxious to get home to take a closer look at it but when I did disappointment set it. On the bottom MADE IN CHINA.

In doing research I saw a blog mention an email from Doug (of Melissa and Doug I assume) saying that “It’s quite possible to make great quality children’s items in China, which meet all safety regulations, but the key point is that you have to test and inspect very frequently to be sure that your factories are always following your instructions explicitly. I assure you that’s exactly what we do.

From our experience, the key to doing this correctly is not simply to insist that your factories follow your instructions, but then to go one step further and to AUDIT, INSPECT, AND TEST very frequently. That is the most important part of the process, and it’s something our company has always taken VERY seriously.”

I don't know about you but this statement does not put me at ease. It says to me that they have experienced problems and are trying to catch any others. But they can't test EVERY toy, right? The factory heads know this, who's to say someone doesn't slip in lower quality products to save themselves a few what ever their currency is. And that is the one that our dear friends bought, wrapped in the beautiful wrapping paper and given to my daughter on her first birthday.

In searching around for toys not made in China I came across these sites:
North Star Toys. Handmade by a husband and wife team in New Mexico.
Green Toys
Haba German Toys Some are made in China, check each item. You can download a PDF from Oompa Toys (see below) showing where each Haba toy is made.
Oompa Toys
Oompa Toys has also addressed parents fears over toxic toys by showing the toy brand name, where it was designed and where the toy is made

And if you want to test the toys (or anything else) you already have you can get lead test kits here.

If you know of other NOT made in China toy brands please let me know!