While the news reporters are constantly mentioning the next recalled toy manufactured in China, many have decided that the best way to stay safe is to avoid Chinese made toys. Certainly with the majority of toys sold in the US coming from China, the majority of the recalls will also originate from China. The natural assumption is that China is recklessly sending over poor quality and unsafe toys and that the solution is as simple as exclusively buying toys made in the US or other safer countries.
What we need to remember is that countries don’t make unsafe toys, companies in countries make unsafe toys. The problem doesn’t lie with China, but with specific companies — many of which are in China. The recalls are all product and company specific problems resulting from careless design and faulty inspection processes and quality control. Even Mattel has apologized to the people of China for damaging their reputation. They acknowledged that they were to blame for their flawed design, not the company who followed their design. There are many, many toymakers who make high quality toys in China and throughout the world and have very good inspection procedures to ensure safety.
The relative few toys that have been recalled have caused widespread mistrust with products made overseas. But it’s not just where the label says a toy is made that makes it safe. Since many toy manufacturers still use some parts or materials from other countries, you can never generalize that a toy is safe based solely on where it originated as it still may contain unsafe parts from elsewhere.
No Strings Attached Toys actively seeks toys made in the US to support local companies, but doesn’t use that as proof that toys are safe. Instead, toys sold in store are first chosen by finding manufacturers that have clean safety records and vigorous testing and inspection practices, regardless of their location of their factories. When new products are received, they are then tested in store with an XRF Analyzer to be certain that the toys on the shelf exceed government safety standards. Shopping at a responsible toy store for toys that have passed lead tests is a far safer method to shop than blindly trusting location labels.
The blame for lead recalls lies entirely on those who fail to inspect toys thoroughly. China is not to blame any more than the US is to blame for allowing the tainted products into the marketplace here.
