Giant rubber duckie supports safe toys in Michigan

Michigan legislators introduced a package of bills called the Safe Children's Products Act, which is intended to help parents protect their children from toxic chemicals found in toys and other children's products.

A giant 25 foot inflatable duck was at the public launch event in Lansing, which featured a number of state representatives who support the legislation and members of the Michigan Network for Children's Environmental Health.

The bills would require the state's health department to identify a list of chemicals of concern and would require manufacturers to report harmful substances found in products, according to an article in the Detroit News. The state attorney general would administer the new rules and would be empowered to issue fines for non-compliance from $5,000 to $150,000.

Groundbreaking work to catalog toxic chemicals in toys spearheaded by the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor largely informed the legislation.  Mike Shriberg of the Ecology Center said that about one-third of 3,000 toys tested were found to have high levels of chemicals.  A report in the Oakland Press noted that Shriberg showed a plastic ear of corn that had five times the legal limit of lead as an example of the toxic chemicals found in toys.

Comments from Michigan representatives illuminate the need for the proposed legislation, which is based on green chemistry bills enacted in California and Maine. 

"We're finding arsenic, mercury, lead and a lot of things in toys that don't belong in children's bodies."  said state Representative Rebekah Warren, D-Ann Arbor, who is sponsoring the package.  "We want to know how much is in the product, and why it's in the product." (Detroit News)

"As a parent, you always worry. But we shouldn't have to worry about the products we purchase for our children. Those products should be safe." Representative Barb Byrum  (Lansing State Journal)

Representative Harold Haugh said national legislation doesn't cover toy safety completely.  "Our national laws are not adequate," said Haugh. (Macomb Daily)