I got this in my email this am and have been seeing bits about the toy ruling on the news as it affects ome manufacturers locally, but did not realise that it included the clothing. Looks like either the price of the stuff is going to go up drasticly or a lot of little people are going to going without clothes. Should get interesting







New safety rules for children's clothes have stores in a fit
Clothing
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Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times
A Goodwill store in Los Angeles is among those that will be required
to pay for private testing for lead and phthalates of all clothing for
those under age 13.
Some owners say the cost of testing for toxic lead and phthalates will
shut their businesses. The law goes into effect Feb. 10.
By Alana Semuels
January 2, 2009
Barring a reprieve, regulations set to take effect next month could
force thousands of clothing retailers and thrift stores to throw away
trunkloads of children's clothing.

The law, aimed at keeping lead-filled merchandise away from children,
mandates that all products sold for those age 12 and younger --
including clothing -- be tested for lead and phthalates, which are
chemicals used to make plastics more pliable. Those that haven't been
tested will be considered hazardous, regardless of whether they
actually contain lead.

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"They'll all have to go to the landfill," said Adele Meyer, executive
director of the National Assn. of Resale and Thrift Shops.

The new regulations take effect Feb. 10 under the Consumer Product
Safety Improvement Act, which was passed by Congress last year in
response to widespread recalls of products that posed a threat to
children, including toys made with lead or lead-based paint.

Supporters say the measure is sorely needed. One health advocacy group
said it found high levels of lead in dozens of products purchased
around the country, including children's jewelry, backpacks and ponchos.

Lead can also be found in buttons or charms on clothing and on
appliques that have been added to fabric, said Charles Margulis,
communications director for the Center for Environmental Health in
Oakland. A child in Minnesota died a few years ago after swallowing a
lead charm on his sneaker, he said.

But others say the measure was written too broadly. Among the most
vocal critics to emerge in recent weeks are U.S.-based makers of
handcrafted toys and handmade clothes, as well as thrift and
consignment shops that sell children's clothing.

"We will have to lock our doors and file for bankruptcy," said Shauna
Sloan, founder of Salt Lake City-based franchise Kid to Kid, which
sells used children's clothing in 75 stores across the country and had
planned to open a store in Santa Clara, Calif., this year.

There is the possibility of a partial reprieve. The Consumer Product
Safety Commission, which is responsible for enforcing the law, on
Monday will consider exempting clothing and toys made of natural
materials such as wool or wood. The commission does not have the
authority to change the law but can decide how to interpret it.

But exempting natural materials does not go far enough, said Stephen
Lamar, executive vice president of the American Apparel and Footwear
Assn. Clothes made of cotton but with dyes or non-cotton yarn, for
example, might still have to be tested, as would clothes that are
cotton-polyester blends, he said.

"The law introduces an extraordinarily large number of testing
requirements for products for which everyone knows there's no lead,"
he said.

Clothing and thrift trade groups say the law is flawed because it went
through Congress too quickly. By deeming that any product not tested
for lead content by Feb. 10 be considered hazardous waste, they
contend, stores will have to tell customers that clothing they were
allowed to sell Feb. 9 became banned overnight.

These groups say the law should be changed so that it applies to
products made after Feb. 10, not sold after that date.

That would take action by Congress, however, because the Consumer
Product Safety Commission's general counsel has already determined
that the law applies retroactively, said commission spokesman Scott
Wolfson.

The regulations also apply to new clothing. That won't be a problem
for large manufacturers and retailers, industry experts say, but it
will be a headache for small operators such as Molly Orr, owner of
Molly O Designs in Las Vegas.

Orr has already produced her spring line of children's clothes. She
says she can't afford the $50,000 it would cost to have a private lab
test her clothing line, so she's trying to sell her inventory at a
steep discount before Feb. 10. After that, she is preparing to close
her business.

"We have a son with autism, so we are all about cleaning up the toxins
that our children are exposed to," she said. "But I think the law
needs to be looked at more closely to see how it is affecting the
economy in general."

Thrift store owners say the law stings because children's garments
often come in new or nearly new, because children typically outgrow
clothing quickly.

Carol Vaporis, owner of Duck Duck Goose Consignment in New Port
Richey, Fla., said her store stocks barely used brand-name clothing
from places such as Limited Too and Gymboree.

"We really provide a service to the community to help people get
clothes for their children they otherwise couldn't afford," she said.

Families have been bringing more clothes to consignment stores, where
they get a chunk of the proceeds, to earn a little cash this winter,
she said. She plans to contact her congressional representatives and
senators to ask them to amend the law but says there's not enough
awareness about the repercussions of the law to force anything to change.

Many retailers and thrift stores appear to be unaware that the law is
changing. Of half a dozen Southern California children's thrift stores
contacted by The Times, only one had heard of the law. Organizations
such as Goodwill say they're still investigating how the law will
affect them because there is so much confusion about what will be banned.

Cynthia Broockman, who owns two consignment stores and a thrift shop
in Virginia, recently stopped accepting children's products for
resale. That raised the ire of a man who was trying to sell his son's
castoffs there and had not heard of the new rules.

"I think it's not understood by people how sweeping and far-reaching
this is," she said. "The ripples that are going to go forth from this
are just astonishing."

alana.semuels@latimes.com

Who cares about the kids, let them freeze. Better to freeze than to have a chance of lead in their pants.

The problem is the government wants workers instead of lazy people, so it want to be sure they people don't have lead in them to slow them down, plus the ones that freeze to death are sickly anyway and don't deserve to live!!

viva la laws that make criminals out of people selling clothes! Hurah hurah!

Lets make everyone a criminal!



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