Just in case you haven’t already heard, the United States Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August, 2008. Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and requires toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number as of February 10, 2009.

The result is that handmade toys without third-party testing and permanent batch labels will be illegal in the USA! Apparently this Act also applies to all children’s products, not just toys. The conspiracy-theorist in me thinks the CPSIA is a convenient way for big business to put independent craftspeople who make handmade toys out of business!

Anyways, here are some good links to check out for more information about the issues and ideas for what you can do to help save handmade toys in the USA:

Handmade Toy Alliance

Resources on Cool Mom Picks

Article about the issues on Craftsbury Kids blog

Vote for change at change.org

Technorati Tags: save handmade toys in the USA, CPSIA, handmade toy alliance