Now that toy companies have issued recalls for millions of Chinese-made toys that are either tainted with lead or otherwise hazardous to children, they are scrambling to figure out what to do with them.
Mattel, which on Tuesday recalled about 18-million toys worldwide, said it was working on a ”responsible approach” but could not provide details.
Amid the lack of clarity, many parents are confused about how to dispose of the toys. That may mean many toys will end up in the trash and eventually in landfills, where they could leach toxins into the groundwater.
The most alarming in a series of toy recalls this summer has been the recall of toys covered with lead-based paint. Children who ingest lead-laced paint can suffer brain damage, and improper disposal of lead-based paint can damage the environment.
Many retailers like Wal-Mart Stores are offering the option of returning the recalled toys to stores, where they are sent back to the makers.
In South Africa, Toys R Us and Reggie’s have instructed all their stores to remove certain toys from their shelves. ”No incidents or injuries have been reported to date that we know of, and the removal of these toys is a voluntary, proactive and precautionary action in the best interest of our customers,” Toys R Us director Issy Zimmerman said on Wednesday.
He called on consumers to bring the affected toys back to any Toys R Us or Reggie’s store, where a full refund will be processed, with or without a cash slip.
”Certainly, there is a significant expense to manage a recall,” said Eric Johnson, professor of Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. ”This is a big headache.”
Lead-painted toys fall under the category of products that would need to be destroyed or properly disposed of, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in Washington, DC.
But plenty of other toys — like the millions of toys including Batman and Polly Pockets recalled this week by Mattel because of hazardous magnets — do not necessarily have to be destroyed.
Still, they could present future legal risks if they pop up in a Salvation Army store or other resale site. The magnetic toys were recalled because their small, powerful magnets could harm children if they are swallowed.
Scott Wolfson, a spokesperson at the CPSC, said a recalled product like a lead-laced toy cannot be exported for resale.
Disposal sometimes is determined as part of a company’s recall negotiations with the agency, but ultimately must be in accordance with state and federal environmental laws, he said.
Wolfson said he could not discuss whether the agency entered into any specific arrangements with Mattel on how it should handle its inventory of recalled products.
For toys that do not pose an environmental hazard, such as the recalled magnetic toys, a manufacturer has more freedom. A company may even seek to ship the items for sale abroad.
”Some companies do request to re-export their products to another country,” Wolfson said.
In such cases, the manufacturers are required to tell the CPSC, which alerts the country where the product is slated to go and gives it the opportunity to deny entry.
Some consumer watchdogs believe that many parents may find returning a toy and waiting for a voucher a cumbersome process and choose instead to simply throw out the dangerous toys.
Perry Gottesfeld, executive director of Occupational Knowledge International, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group that tracks environmental health issues, worried that ”ultimately, this problem is also creating a landfill problem because most of these products are not likely to be captured by manufacturers”. — Sapa-AP, Sapa