CPSC Grants a One Year stay of the new CPSIA testing and certification requirements!

CPSC Grants a One Year stay of the new CPSIA testing and certification requirements!

This is awesome news!

While we all should continue what we have started in trying to ensure that everything we (as craftsmen) make is well within the limits for lead and phthalates (and other hazardous chemicals), it does mean that for the next year (until February 10, 2010) we will not have to pay exhorbit prices for the 3rd party testing as was originally planned in order to ship to the United States.

From what I can gather, one of the things they will be considering is whether or not the retailers/manufacturers of the supplies we use for our crafts will have to provide all of the 3rd party testing certificates to us, the users, and if that should be sufficient. This reprieve will also allow them to provide a list of accepted testing labs, and to educate all small business with testing requirements etc.

Personally, I believe that as long as I provide the certificates I get from the retailers for all of the supplies used in my crafts, that should be sufficient. And, would you not think so as well? I mean, really! Since I am not the one bringing in all the supplies from other countries, I am only a consumer myself. I am not the one who is mass-producing little jewellry findings, or paint, or glue, or fabrics, or any number of the "ingredients" in my crafts. I would think that the big retailers are the ones that should be ensuring that what they are selling to the public is safe for the public to use!

Anyway, enough said. For the time being, we have a reprieve, until the commission has an opportunity to review just exactly what it is they were proposing and how it would effect not only the economy of the USA, but all of the world!

I must state here that I do agree that we must protect our children. They are our future. But there is a difference between protecting them, and trying to make it so that they have no contact with Anything that is manufactured (in a factory or in an individual's home) up to and including fabrics, paper products, craft supplies, etc. Is it actually the plan to put them in little bubbles, safe from the nastiness of the Entire World? Of course, what would those bubbles be made of? And who made them?

To read the entire report in PDF please go here : http://www.cpsc.gov/library/foia/foia09/brief/stayenforce.pdf