Safe Design in the Toy Industry

While bad manufacturing processes can be blamed for some toy recalls, a far larger percentage can be blamed on regular ol' design screw-ups, according to Newsday:

When toy maker Mattel Inc. ordered one of its largest recalls in August, nearly 90 percent of the items had small magnets that could be easily removed and swallowed by small children -- "a design flaw solely attributable to Mattel," according to a September report published by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

That study also revealed that design problems were responsible for 76.4 percent of recalls issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission between 1988 and this past August. Manufacturing issues contributed to about 10 percent of those recalls, the study showed.

The piece continues to explain how the toy design and manufacturing process works, including safety testing and packaging design. It sounds like magnets in children's toys are a big mistake.

Toy safety starts with design [Newsday via Core77]

[#1 posted by L. M. Lloyd , October 8, 2007 1:28 PM]

As someone who has always had a love of toys, I find many of the comments in this article quite disturbing. It occurs to me that every single toy I had growing up as a child was, by this set f standards, positively lethal. How long before LEGOs, with all their small removable parts, are completely banned? Forget my beloved Micronauts, and all those great Japanese toys I had.

I'm sorry, the fixation our culture has developed on safety over all else, and governmental regulation over every aspect of our lives is, in my callous opinion, a greater evil than the possibility that some less than brilliant child might not be able to distinguish between his toys and his food, or that some less than brilliant parent might not be able to figure out what toy is appropriate for their offspring.

A child could easily kill or maim themselves with a stick or rock, does that mean we should turn the entire world into a giant padded room, to safeguard children from the dangers of nature?

[#2 posted by dculberson , October 8, 2007 1:37 PM]

Lloyd, I agree!!

[#3 posted by strider_mt2k , October 9, 2007 7:13 AM]

Indeed.
I started tinkering with electronics at an early age, I'm surprised they still let kids expose themselves to risk by sticking a wire in a spring terminal!
God forbid we learn anything.

Wear your goggles!
and your gloves
and your glove and goggle protectors

[#4 posted by dculberson , October 9, 2007 7:33 AM]

Yeah, nowadays a parent would have a fit (or get in trouble) when it came to light that solder has lead in it.

I worked with solder starting around 12 years old and I have no [tic] problems [tic] from it [tic]!!