I want to point your attention to a very important issue that is going on now. Starting on February 10, 2009, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act comes into effect. A major impact of this program is the mandate that everything sold for children 12 and younger will have to be tested for lead and phthalates. Anything that isn’t tested or that fails the test will be considered hazardous and cannot be sold.
This has a direct impact to small clothes and toy makers, thrift and consignment stores. They can’t afford to send out each and every item they receive out for testing and will probably be forced to stop selling children clothes or close doors altogether. To make matters worse most of those clothes that previously were donated will now probably end up in a landfill.
This will also impact families who relied heavily on thrift stores to dress their children. Demand for new clothes will probably go up impacting the price upwards. Read more about this here, here and here. You CAN do something about this: sign this petition to help small business owners or write to your local Congressman (this link has a letter template you can use) and ask that used clothes be left out of this program.
What are your thoughts about this? How much do you think this will impact your family?
