Toys help nursery go chemical-free

By Carla Hinton

Published: June 19, 2007

EDMOND — When a local news station recently aired a report about toxic toys, Barbara Price was relieved.

Price is an empty-nester. Her children are well past the age of playing with dolls and miniature cars. But as the early childhood education director at Memorial Road Church of Christ, Price has paid attention to reported concerns about chemicals used to make plastic toys.

These are the kind of toys her young charges at the Edmond church eagerly pounce upon. Like most small children, the babies and toddlers often put the toys in their mouths, which means the playthings must be aggressively disinfected daily.

Price said the news account about toxins hit home because Memorial Road has already addressed the issue. Price has designed fabric toys called Softees — colorful cloth curios based on the church's Bible curriculum for small children.

The machine washable toys come in 20 designs, such as fruit, animals, birds, babies, trees and other shapes. The toys are featured in the May/June issue of Children's Ministry Magazine as a new product available for child care programs.

"We were so frustrated with these manipulatives,” Price said of the small plastic toys the church used to offer children.

"We put them in the dishwasher, but there's an airhole, and it's hard to keep it all clean.”

Price said she is no chemist, but she became concerned about phthalates several years ago when global concerns were raised about its use in children's toys. Phthalates are colorless, odorless liquids used in the manufacture of everything from toys to cars. The chemical is included in "The Battle to Ban Toxic Toys,” a story featured in the May/June issue of emagazine.com, the online component of The Environmental Magazine.

"Environmentalists and environmentally minded legislators are beginning to worry about long-term exposure to the chemical compounds,” the story's author, Brita Belli, wrote.

"Specifically they worry about diisononyl phthalate or DINP, a plasticizer commonly used in soft vinyl products made for babies, such as baby books, rubber ducks and teething rings as well as bisphenol A, BPA, a building block for polycarbonate plastic used in shatter-resistant bottles.”

Price said she found out that several European governing entities had banned the chemicals from children's products. According to Environmental Magazine's toxic toys story, the European Parliament banned phthalates for children's toys, and the European Union has ordered the removal of certain phthalates compounds from children's products.

And the issue is of concern in America.

According to the magazine, the city of San Francisco would have been the first U.S. jurisdiction to ban phthalates and BPA from children's toys and feeding products under its "Stop Toxic Toys” law beginning Jan. 1. But two lawsuits, one state and one federal, both backed by chemical and toy manufacturers, stalled the initiative. However, earlier this month, the California State Assembly passed a bill to ban or restrict the use of certain phthalates in children's vinyl toys. The measure must be approved by the California Senate and signed by the governor before it becomes law.

The American Chemistry Council, in a prepared statement featured on its Web site, www.americanchemistrycouncil.com scolded the assembly for its approval of the bill.

"It is very regrettable that pressure politics was able to push aside science and the facts of the case,” Marian Stanley, manager of the council's Phthalate Esters Panel, said in the statement. "Every major scientific review conducted in Europe and the United States has found the primary phthalate used in toys safe for that use. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission conducted an intense, four-year study of the primary phthalate used in vinyl toys, DINP, and found ‘no justification' for banning it. But by a one-vote margin, scare stories have won out over the evidence.”

Other American safety organizations and groups affected by the issue, such as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Toy Industry Association, join the chemical council in saying there is no need for alarm. They say an in-depth study conducted several years ago showed that the targeted chemicals pose no risk to children.

Price said she is aware that the debate continues on the safety of toys with phthalates. She said she prefers to err on the side of caution in her quest to rid her church nursery of toxins. She labored to find disinfectants that adhered to her chemical-free mission.

"I tried to find ‘green chemicals' so our nursery is cleaned with all nontoxic cleaners,” she said.

When she got to the toys, she began to clean house, so to speak.

"I just started going through the toys we have and pitching stuff out.”

She said the few plastic manipulatives or toys that they have kept are washed and air-dried.

Price said her husband, Jeff, knew of her concerns and bought special software so that she could work on designing toys that she would deem safe. He turned a room in the couple's Edmond home into a "design studio,” she said, adding that she once was a licensed designer of McCall's patterns.

She said she developed the Softees over a period of months then tried them out at the nursery. The teachers and children seemed to love them. Price said eventually she had to get other women, including her mother, Ann Thompson, to help make the fabric toys since she needed a set for each child based on specific curricula.

"I'll make them, and she'll stuff them and sew them up.”

For example the Noah's Ark curriculum is designed so that a teacher can tell the story of the biblical figure and each child in the class can have a set of Softees characters that correspond to the lesson. That particular lesson includes 12 characters, including an ark, so 120 Softees, a set for about 10 children, were created.

Price said she often shows the toys when she speaks at conventions such as one for children's pastors held in Florida earlier this year. Proceeds from the Softees go to the church, which she said is not out to make a profit but to provide safe tools for ministry.

What's next for the toxin sleuth? She's searching for a nontoxic carpet cleaner.

"There's always room for improvement,” Price said.