Victory! A toxic Toy Story

Feature story - July 7, 2005

STRASBOURG, France — Before now, bad Barbies, toxic Teletubbies and rotten rubber ducks could have been slowly poisoning small children. The very chemicals that made these toys so soft and tempting to teething toddlers have been shown to damage organs in animals. But the European Parliament has banned manufacturers from using six of these toxic chemicals, freeing Europe from many toxic toys for good.

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Toxic teletubbies? Po (who has a PVC mouth) will no longer be so poisonous in the EU under new laws banning phlalates from toys.

Back in 1997 we tested a wide range of popular PVC plastic toys, such as rubber ducks, dolls and baby's teethers and showed that they contained dangerous chemicals. We tested more toys in spring 2005, and found that Spiderman Flip 'n zip and Mattel's Barbie "Fashion Fever" contained high levels of harmful phthalates. (Looks like she was suffering from more than Fashion Fever).

A bitter battle ensued while the chemical and toy industries fought hard to prevent today's decision - but the forces of good have finally won out.

The case of the toxic toys shows how slow the current process for regulating chemicals is, and the urgent need for a much stronger law.

Europe is the world's largest chemical producer and yet the majority of chemicals manufactured and used everyday have never been properly tested. For those that have been tested and found to be toxic, it can take years for them to be controlled; and even then they can still sometimes be used in consumer products.

The EU is currently preparing a new chemicals law called REACH, which aims to ban or control a wide range of dangerous chemicals used in all EU products. But the chemical industry has already succeeded in getting most of the 100,000 chemicals currently in use excluded from the rules.

We are campaigning for all industries to stop using hazardous chemicals and to replace them with safer alternatives, a process called 'substitution'.

However if you want to be absolutely sure that the toys you buy are safe, avoid anything containing PVC or vinyl because laws are still not tight enough on these kinds of plastics.

We should be able to trust industry not to produce dangerous chemicals and manufacturers not to use them. But it seems they won't clean up their acts unless we force them to. If you want your Toy Story to have a happy ending, make a difference by shopping wisely and choosing environmentally sound products.

More info

Check out the "Chemical Home" for a guide to safer products

More on our current campaign to solve the chemicals crisis.