heirloom toys that come with more than memories

My mom carefully and lovingly stored away many of the toys that my brothers and I played with as kids and she has sent at least some of them to us over the last two years so that Sawyer can enjoy them as well. Some of them I remember, some I do not. The ones I remember best were some bath toys - a fisher-price tug boat and a green turtle who could swim on its back.

I've always kind of wondered whether some of the toys were really safe - after all, they were made from plastic nearly thirty years ago. Since we know bad stuff leaches out of plastic in the short-term, imagine what could happen when it actually starts to degrade! Not to mention that in the mid-seventies when lead was okay to use in housepaint, gasoline, and who knows what else.

But it's hard to refuse a gift toy (unless it has lights and music, in which case it can be hidden at first opportunity), and even harder to turn down a very cute toy that brings back fond memories.

Today, we said goodbye to tugboat.

Our local library had a free screening for lead in toys today. The flyer said to prioritize so I grabbed several toys from his bins, focusing on the wheeled variety that he now plays with most frequently. I also thought to take turtle and tug from the tub.

The testing was sponsored by Cornerstones of Science, an award-winning program at our library that runs all sorts of "science for the masses" programs - book discussions, public speakers, raising monarch butterflies, and apparently lead-testing as well (it's now being replicated at libraries across the country so keep an eye out for it near you).

It was great to hear about this program because it's been on my mind recently, because of the too-numerous-to-count recalls of toys due to unsafe levels of lead. I had been thinking that someone enterprising should come up with a home-testing kit. But then I also read recently that these tests don't work. Not to mention that apparently there is ONE inspector at the responsible for testing of all toys.

But you want to know about tug, right?

The tests were conducted by two people - Jocelyn, the staffperson for Cornerstones of Science, and a scientist who has been doing research (whose name I unfortunately don't remember and whose connection to the library I don't quite know - I'd guess he's affiliated with one of the collecges). They had two spectrometers, which look like super-size bar-code readers (and apparently costs $35,000 - guess that's why the home tests aren't very reliable!). They hold it on various parts of the toy and it beeps while it determines the presence of lead. If it reads less than 0.1, it's considered fine, even though there are no standards for acceptable levels of lead in toys. There can occasionally be trace amounts of lead on the bottom of toy cars and that's considered okay. Anything about 1.0 is considered an issue.

So, the results for my toys: red dollar tractor from target = fine; red, blue, yellow dollar trains from target = fine (a relief b/c I've wondered whether they were related to the thomas recalls); wooden red and blue wind-me-up train = fine; stuffed red pepper doll = fine; green turtle who floats on his back (circa 1978) = fine.

Tug with black smokestack and orange hull = not so fine. Like ten times not so fine. The orange registered 10.4. Not terribly surprising. The scientist was very intrigued and ran several more detailed tests. He explained them all but I have to admit I didn't fully understand what he was showing me so I can hardly explain it again. The first result was all I really needed to know - this tug wasn't going back to the bathtub. I donated it to him for further research. Apparently, he was really intrigued by whether it was the paint or the base of the plastic, and plans to take it apart.

Luckily, Sawyer usually takes a bath only once or maybe twice a week at this point (partly due to his extra-dry skin, partly due to parental laziness - although he is usually pretty clean), so I'm thinking that he probably wasn't very exposed, given that there were no chips or scratches. They thought it looked like it was in pretty good condition. I'll try not to think about about whether hot water could cause degradation!

There are a few other Fisher-Price toys from 1978 that we have in our house - I didn't think to bring them along but I'm guessing that we'll probably choose to put them all back in a box. One sidenote - did you know that Fisher-Price was owned by Quaker Oats in the seventies? And that the toys used to be Made in USA? hmmm... lead or local? (ya, I get that 30-year-old toys don't really count the same).

So, I think for my christmas shopping, I'll be taking a closer look at pickel's lead-free toy list over at My Two Boys. Check it out to enter her free giveaways.