Customs agents seize over 35,000 rubber toys due to a potential hazard to children
Image/U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Have you ever heard of phthalate? Can you even pronounce it?
It’s because of this banned chemical that 35,712 Chinese-made Santas, Snowmen, Gingerbread men, Reindeer and Penguins were seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and import specialists, at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport last week, according to a CBP news release Friday.
The toys, valued at $18,522, contained a regulated phthalate in excess of the limit which may be harmful to the health and safety of children.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC):
Phthalates are a group of chemicals (oily, colorless liquids) that are used among other things to make vinyl and other plastics soft and flexible. CPSC regulation prohibits the sale, distribution or importation into the United States of any children’s toy or child care article that contains concentrations of more than 0.1 percent of di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), or benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP).
Over the past four years, CPSC and CBP have stopped more than 8.5 million dangerous and hazardous toys and children’s products from ports across the nation.
By seizing dangerous toys and children’s products at U.S. ports of entry, CBP and CPSC keep unsafe products off store shelves and out of consumers’ homes, according to the news release.
