'Made In China' Toys: Is Your Family Safe?

Author: Sarah Corlett

Article:
With the massive number of recalled goods manufactured in China
this past year, there is certainly cause for concern. From pet
food to children's toys, the products found to be contaminated
or simply unsafe have hit families where they can truly be hurt.

A statistic that cannot be ignored is the fact that products
made in China account for 80% of all toys sold in the United
States, and a similar pattern holds true for the rest of the G8
countries - the richest nations in the world. All of these
countries maintain high government-enforced safety standards in
the manufacture of toys, but China is behind in such regulation
and they find themselves short-staffed to enforce the
regulations they do have. The fact of the matter is, as long as
large corporations such as Mattel look to shave dollars off of
their bottom line by having their manufacturing done in the
developing world, rather than within the G8 countries where
their toys are primarily sold, these sorts of problems will
continue to arise. The factories where these goods are being
produced use cheap components and even cheaper labour. I know
it's a cliché, but you do very often get what you pay for.

There are some people who have spoken up in defense of the
practice of farming out manufacturing jobs, as well as other
jobs requiring large numbers of workers (such as call centres),
to the developing world, saying that it reduces costs to the
consumers. Frankly, I believe that it only increases profits to
the companies that use these factories. However, when companies
cut costs, somebody somewhere has to pay them - and it seems
that it usually ends up being the shopper that is buying their
toys. We're seeing it now, in the massive recalls that have
probably only just begun.

That is not to say that China hasn't felt the sting of this
global controversy. The head of the Chinese toy factory at the
centre of the lead paint dispute took his own life in one of his
warehouses shortly after the world-wide August 2007 recalls that
brought so much negative attention to the country's
manufacturing industry. Mattel has announced stricter scrutiny
of its own products prior to their distribution and some members
of the government of the United States have called for
legislation to detain Chinese made products at customs for full
safety inspections before allowing them to enter their country.
With such a negative light shining on their manufacturing
industry and the Olympics coming to Beijing, the Chinese
government is likely to step up regulation in its manufacturing
industry to counteract the bad public relations that they have
received thus far. What that will mean to large companies like
Mattel is hard to predict at this point, but I think that a
higher cost for toys at the cash register is a small price to
pay for the safety of our children.

About the author:
Sarah Corlett runs the successful toy resource The Toy Maker:
www.the-toy-maker.co.uk