In The News: Canada still sells toys banned in Europe

Dr. Paul Johnston, a Greenpeace toxiologist, holds toys that the organization says contain PVC.
Photograph by : Ian Smith

Canada still sells toys banned in Europe
By Sarah Schmidt/Canwest News Service and Mary Frances HillDecember 7, 2008

OTTAWA - Despite a decade-old voluntary ban in North America, Health Canada tests found three-quarters of soft plastic toys and items on sale for young children in Canada contained toxic chemical additives known to cause reproductive harm in children.

Phthalates, a chemical family used to soften plastic toys, were found at elevated levels in the department's sampling of 54 of 72 products made of the widely used plastic known as polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

The toys, for children ages three and under, included soft vinyl ones likely to be mouthed, like bath toys, and items designed for infants to help in feeding or sleeping .

The levels ranged from 0.2 to 39.9 per cent by weight of the PVC in the products.

All these toys and children's products with added phthalates for sale in Canada have been banned by the European Union since 1999. In the United States, a ban modelled on the European prohibition comes into effect in February. In these jurisdictions, phthalates concentrations cannot exceed 0.1 per cent.

Health Canada conducted the market survey in the last year to find out whether toys banned in Europe were still readily available in Canada, and to "understand what manufacturers are using instead of phthalates," according to minutes of a meeting of Health Canada officials released under Access to Information.

The department declined to release further details about brands and retailers, but said no enforcement action was necessary because the products are legal in Canada.

"What these results mean is that many toys on sale in Canada are illegal to sell in the European Union and George Bush's government has said that they are too toxic to be on sale in the U.S. as of February. So why do Canadian kids deserve less protection than George Bush is giving to American children?" asked Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence.

Phthalates are not chemically bound to the plastic toys to which they're added, so they continuously leach from the products. The process speeds up when young children mouth or suck on items like rubber ducks and other bath toys.

Phthalates worry David Vaisbord, a Vancouver filmmaker and father of two young children. His 19-month-old son Julian is often tempted to test new and foreign objects on his tongue. "I do wonder what's in plastic toys," Vaisbord said.

Like many parents, he said, he's become more alert to the dangers of additives since the crisis over tainted dairy products in China, and Canada's banning of the chemical bisphenol-A from plastic products.

"The whole situation about the Chinese milk, and the BPA in plastic bottles really raised my consciousness. I haven't microwaved anything in plastic for the last five years. I'm really paranoid about it."

mfhill@vancouversun.com
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