New Lead Regulations Affecting Libraries, Toy Makers
Librarians will not have to purge their older books and novels after all on Tuesday, after a new product safety law comes into play.
The new requirement, passed in August, hugely reduces the amount of lead and other chemicals permitted in kids’ products. This was worrying libraries, as several books published prior to 1980s had ink made with lead.
On Saturday the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency that enforces the law, declared that it would not prosecute anyone for distributing "ordinary" children’s books made after 1985.
These books in fact do violate the new lead law, which says that kids’ items shall have no more than 600 parts per million starting on Tuesday. The standards increase in August when the limit decreases to 300 parts per million.
Since kids are pretty hard on library books, congressional staff thinks it is improbable that libraries even have children’s books that are older than 24 years.
The agency also will not prosecute anyone for selling most vintage clothing.
The ban will influence the selling of some clothes and books, like books with plastic, metal or electronic parts, and clothes finished with leather, vinyl, polyvinyl chloride or metal parts, meaning zippers, which made be lead based.
Toymakers are also affected by the new regulations, and have been criticized in the past by several Congressional leaders for not giving businesses specific instructions on how to abides the laws. The lead restrictions will not include inaccessible parts, like electronics enclosed in a sealed cavity.
The commission has come under fire recently.
Environmentalists sued to demand that the agency act on a specific part of the law, which prohibits the making of children’s toys with traces the chemical phthalates, as it interferes with the hormone system and is connected to genital aberrations in baby boys.
On Thursday, a federal judge in New York announced that the law forbids children’s products manufactured with phthalates. The commission added on Thursday that it would not contradict the judge’s reading of the law.
The National Association of Manufacturers requested that the commission to postpone implementing the law until after the agency sends businesses sounder advice.
The commission denied that appeal. Even though the law will take effect on schedule, manufacturers will not have to examine or confirm products as lead-free for one more year. As of now, if manufacturers consider that their items do meet the new requirements, they can sell them.
"Historically, the commission has used its civil and criminal penalty authority when necessary, but sparingly," said the agency’s commissioner, Thomas Moore, announced a statement.
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