Amazon must remove toxic school supplies, kids’ jewelry from US marketplace

https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/ag-ferguson-amazon-must-remove-toxic-school-supplies-kid-s-jewelry-marketplace

by tareqak • 7 years ago

313 234 7 years ago

atg.wa.gov

dqpb• 7 years ago

They should also let you filter by country of origin.

saagarjha• 7 years ago

This will likely not be useful: now you can't buy iPhones, and many companies will perform "assembly" in the United States to get around these kinds of things.

dd364• 7 years ago

Markets can’t work their market signal magic if information is concealed. If I don’t want to support an authoritarian regime, I shouldn’t have to.

nyolfen• 7 years ago

manufactured in china isn't the same as shipped from a chinese seller. i think it would be difficult to profitably use the assembly workaround for small cheap stuff that gets sold by junk peddlers a la this press release

bastawhiz• 7 years ago

If I'm buying clothes for the gym, I don't want to buy "ROWILUX" or "YAKER" or "YSENTO" brand. I've bought enough to know they're all junk. Just show me the stuff that people actually put effort into! If I'm looking for an iPhone, I'll search for iPhones. If I'm looking for tank tops, show me the ones that aren't going to disintegrate after a month.

hedora3• 7 years ago

Many of the items in the article look like they are licensed from major brands.

I’d guess they are counterfeit, so filtering by where the real item is manufactured doesn’t really help with things like toxic materials.

(I’m not arguing against such filters, just pointing out that they may not solve this problem.)

aitchnyu• 7 years ago

Spanish and Greek olive oils are sold as "Bottled in Italy". A country could game your supply chain desires.

https://epochproducts.com/blog/is-your-italian-olive-oil-rea...

https://www.foodbeast.com/news/olive-oil-spain/

Symbiote4• 7 years ago

The EU's own laws don't distinguish between EU countries, you need only label something as "made in the EU". But, they still can't lie – "from Italian olives" had to mean that.

You could buy olive oil from a producer in an area with protected origin status, similar to Champagne for wine. That's likely to cost more.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/food-farming-fisheries/food-safety...

mtnGoat• 7 years ago

As a Washing State resident, I am happy to see our state leading the charge in these kinds of efforts.

Someone12343• 7 years ago

They should also be required to remove the "SoClean." A device designed to intentionally pump toxic ozone into medical breathing assistance devices.

Ozone has a limit but studies have shown even below the legal limit[0][1][2] can be considered harmful. The population that typically use devices like CPAPs may be more vulnerable than the general populous to ozone exposure (and this exposure is targeted due to the usage of the "SoClean").

Mark my words: This will be looked back on like asbestos, radon clocks, and giving kids x-ray toys.

[0] https://www.healtheffects.org/research/ongoing-research/effe...

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5755393/

[2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060216231940.h...

verelo3• 7 years ago

I’ve got a UV filter in my furnace that i believe produces ozone, should i be concerned in your opinion?

HarryHirsch• 7 years ago

Probably no reason for concern. The bog-standard germicidal lights emit UV at 254 nm, but to generate ozone you'd need vacuum UV at 189 nm. You'd expect this to be filtered out, precisely because of the health hazard.

That said, I'd be concerned around photocopiers. If you can smell ozone it's definitely above occupational exposure threshold. In a previous workplace I kept telling our secretary just that, but she wouldn't listen.

Someone12343• 7 years ago

There's two types of UV Air Filters, based on UV-A and UV-C. UV-A systems don't produce much ozone (but sometimes the bulbs are imperfect and produce a trace amount). Ozone is produced by ultraviolet light in the 160–240nm range, meaning UV-C.

If you have a UV-C based UV Filter I wouldn't call that ideal but at least you're still receiving less than a ozone generator or even an ioniser both of which would produce higher ozone levels.

You may still wish to crack a window occasionally and look at a HEPA filter next major upgrade cycle.

hedora3• 7 years ago

Are you sure it isn’t (also) electrostatic? Those definitely produce ozone, and should be avoided, apparently.

Karunamon• 7 years ago

The SoClean is only used when the CPAP is not in active use, i.e., it's a sanitizing device.

The amount of ozone you're going to be exposed to after the device is done (it only runs a cycle when you pack your mask into it) is minuscule and likely less harmful than the nasties that would grow in your machine, mask, and tubing (warm, dark places).

Someone12343• 7 years ago

I'm aware of how it works. It is an ozone generator likely left next to the CPAP (even in their own product literature) that leaves ozone inside the CPAP tube and machine, while polluting the area/room with increased levels.

You're essentially taking people with breathing difficulties and increasing their exposure to a substance that is known at low levels to cause breathing problems. Additionally CPAP's filter systems have no way of removing O3 from the room's air.

When properly used the device is harmful.

userbinator3• 7 years ago

I wonder what they're using the lead and cadmium for? Also, "toxic" may be overexaggerating; "poisonous" or even "possibly harmful" might be more accurate, but even then, from what I understand you'd have to consume a lot of it for it to be a problem.

(I worked on electronics and soldered with real lead solder for many decades, starting when I was a kid, and think RoHS and the lead-ban has caused far more environmental problems.)

Edit: apparently controversial opinions are not welcome here either...? Or is it the "chemicals are scary" crowd again? :|

rectangletangle• 7 years ago

They're probably using the cadmium for red paint/dye.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_pigments

userbinator3• 7 years ago

Worth reading the safety section, which starts with this sentence:

Cadmium sulfide is not very toxic (LD50 above 5,000 mg/kg) when used as a pigment, although acute exposure to cadmium vapors from welding is harmful.

For comparison, sodium chloride (table salt) has an LD50 of 3,000mg/kg.

verelo3• 7 years ago

Not familiar with the reasons why the lead ban or rohs would be an issue for the environment, can you point me in the right direction? They seem like positive moves on the surface, but I’m sure they’re not as straightforward as I’d like.

userbinator3• 7 years ago

One of the reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_(metallurgy)

Lead-free solder is also less resilient to thermal stress because it's not as ductile, and that lead to plenty of PCB failures around the time manufacturers switched over --- creating even more e-waste.

Fortunately, military/aerospace is still exempt from the ban.

Here's an interesting NASA presentation about lead-free vs. leaded solder:

https://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/reference/tech_papers/2011-kos...

astura4• 7 years ago

Paint.

from what I understand you'd have to consume a lot of it for it to be a problem.

Your understanding is wrong.

emeraldd• 7 years ago

The cadmium could easily be tied to pigments, though I suspect this is more likely from environmental contamination.

Some quick google searches find things like:

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/HealthyLiving/cad... https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=6&po=5 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3184/095422910X126314...

So likely, they aren't using the Cadmium and Lead for anything directly with these products, it just happens to be around as a contaminant from other processes.

analog31• 7 years ago

As I understand it, one use is in catalysts that speed up the drying of paint...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_drying_agent

onion2k• 7 years ago

Also, "toxic" may be overexaggerating; "poisonous" or even "possibly harmful" might be more accurate, but even then, from what I understand you'd have to consume a lot of it for it to be a problem.

Toxic is definitely the correct term. Heavy metals like lead and cadmium don't get excreted by your body; they build up in the brain and kidneys until they kill you. For this reason there is no level of exposure that's considered safe. Even a very low level of exposure will kill you eventually.

astura4• 7 years ago

Lead exposure in children causes permanent damage to the brain and nervous system.

schappim• 7 years ago

> I wonder what they're using the lead and cadmium for

pigments (lead), soldering (lead) and light sensors (cadmium).

ng122• 7 years ago

Good. Amazon is just lazy when it comes to product quality. Any non-specialty product has a pretty high chance of being a fake and/or manufactured with sub-standard materials. It's shaken my confidence to the point where, even as a card-carrying Prime member, I'd rather shlep over to Target than order from Amazon.

ethbro• 7 years ago

Precisely. If I can't trust Amazon to detect a counterfeit Apple charger, then why would I trust them to test anything for something even more subtle?

ninjakeyboard• 7 years ago

Amazon isn't making this, they probably don't see samples of every good, and they definitely don't grind up the whole product and test it. It's paint and pigment that has lead/cadmium so only certain colours and portions of the products will have these qualities.

ikeboy5• 7 years ago

Apple is a bad example, because they made a deal with them last year and kicked all the unauthorized sellers off.

freyr• 7 years ago

I’ve been buying from Target’s website lately. They’ve reduced shipping times a lot, and you don’t need to deal with shady third-party sellers or commingled counterfeits.

j79• 7 years ago

I decided to do the same after I received a counterfeit (or altered) item from Amazon for a skincare product. I had grown suspicious of Amazon reviews and their practice of co-mingling items, but it suddenly occurred to me that buying something with the intention of applying it to my skin, without truly trusting the source, was probably not the smartest thing to do. I decided to switch to either ordering from trusted sources (Sephora, Target, etc) or physically visiting the store. One advantage of forcing myself to go out to a physical store is I'm way less inclined to splurge on an item, unless I truly need it. It's shocking how easy Amazon made that possible.

mmastrac2• 7 years ago

This isn't just Amazon. CBC in Canada found lead and cadmium in major retailers in Canada. It's cheap chinese imports that are the problem overall.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cadmium-jewelry-ardene-aldo-1...

imglorp• 7 years ago

Pet food also, containing melamine for whatever reason, responsible for a number of deaths 10 years ago.

https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/recalls-withdrawals/me...

mmastrac2• 7 years ago

I had forgotten about that. IIRC it was theorized melamine was used to fake protein tests.

BooneJS• 7 years ago

That killed my brother’s English setter. Poor thing wasted away to nothing.

mherdeg• 7 years ago

A while back as a joke a friend ordered us the first 20 search results on AliExpress for 'panda' which were less than $1 shipped.

Stuff trickled in from China, Estonia, and Myanmar over the following month or two. We've been keeping it all in a bucket -- magnets, erasers, stickers, a baffling little squishy rainbow caterpillar panda, and mostly very small plush animal toys. The winner of the batch was a surprisingly high-quality hand puppet.

We let our toddler play with a couple of these tiny toys because they seemed fun; we did make him wash his hands afterwards before eating, but still in retrospect I think that was a mistake. There are zero enforced regulatory requirements for that marketplace and those manufacturers at that price point, and we have no way of knowing what cheap but toxic paint or additives were used. We should probably just dump the panda bucket :(

Symbiote4• 7 years ago

The Estonian toy ought to comply with EU regulations (maybe only if it's also sold in the EU). These are fairly strict.

I can't find reports of Eastern European being non-conformant more often than Western European goods, but I haven't looked very much.

You can look for a CE mark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking

rgrieselhuber2• 7 years ago

It would be useful to have items that are foreign imports clearly labeled on Amazon.

markdown• 7 years ago

That would be most things. It would make (a little) more sense to tag "Made in USA" products.

rgrieselhuber2• 7 years ago

That works too

xfitm3• 7 years ago

The law finally catches up with online retailers.

AnaniasAnanas• 7 years ago

Shouldn't there be criminal charges for this?

everybodyknows• 7 years ago

The scary thing is, Amazon is required only to collect a piece of paper from the seller and yank products when notified -- the really substantial burden of continuing enforcements is put back on the individual states:

"Moreover, if the Attorney General or Washington Department of Ecology advise Amazon of any children’s school supplies or jewelry that exceed safe levels, Amazon must remove the product from its online marketplace within two business days."

Nothing less than a program of frequent random sampling is going to keep the products clean. Times 50, plus international.

benjamincburns• 7 years ago

Amazon is becoming more and more like AliExpress with respect to product accuracy and quality. As an example, I recently bought tomato seeds for my garden. I searched for rainbow tomatoes, and the bulk of the results were clearly photoshopped photos made to look like they'd grow tomatoes with colors that'd get lost in a ball pit.

It's easy to evaluate on things like that, but on stuff where corners can be cut I definitely worry.

discreditable• 7 years ago

A while back I bought habanero seeds on Amazon. They sprouted and did well, but they put out regular sweet peppers. I've bought catnip seeds that were fine. Anymore, I only buy seeds from the store though.

DannyBee5• 7 years ago

"Amazon entered into a nationwide legally binding agreement to block the sale of children’s schools supplies and jewelry on Amazon.com without lab reports and other proof from the sellers that the products are not toxic."

IE Amazon can pass the buck completely to the sellers.

This will simultaneously make it expensive for those sellers actually trying to comply (lab testing is not cheap), and do nothing for those that were likely the problem in the first place (who will just fake lab results and do so at a lesser price)[1]

They should require amazon to randomly sample.

[1] In case you think this is not a real problem note that similar kinds of lab testing requirements destroyed, for example, children's toys except from large scale sellers who could afford the cost of compliance (see https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Educat...). You will find basically no small manufacturers of childrens toys anymore. Different cause, but likely same effect.

I'm sure it made things safer in some sense, but yeah.

josho• 7 years ago

They should require amazon to randomly sample.

If governments cared about safety they would do the sampling and fine companies a meaningful percent of profit. That would fix these problems once and for all.

Unfortunately we’ve elected governments that cut regulations which encourages the opposite behavior from companies.

wallace_f• 7 years ago

Unfortunately we’ve elected governments that cut regulation

It's really not that simple. The regulations here benefit Amazon. This is why Facebook is asking to be regulated. It's called regulatory capture. It's a product of corporatism or cronyism. Established corporations lobby for regulations that shut out small business and protect their profits.

ricardobeat2• 7 years ago

In Brazil there is a national institution (INMETRO) that certifies almost every mass-produced item, with mandatory and voluntary categories, on a budget of ~US$100m/year.

School supplies are in the mandatory group, for obvious reasons.

JumpCrisscross• 7 years ago

they would do the sampling and fine companies a meaningful percent of profit

There is a role for a non-profit here to test products, publicise the results and potentially even bring cases to court against Amazon as a funding strategy. Barring that, propose a bill for your state watchdog to your state legislator. Waiting around for governments to care about random issues isn’t how any system works.

martin-adams• 7 years ago

On the flip side, it would be nice for suppliers to know their products are not toxic in the first place, rather than to just catch it after the harm is done.

This will act as a deterrent to catch those knowingly selling toxic products. But if lab testing isn't in the reach of suppliers, then how can they know if it's toxic free?

That said, I think a safety net is valuable, whether Amazon or government. It would be nice to see innovation to bring the cost of testing down so it's accessible to everyone.

merpnderp• 7 years ago

Why isn't this a case for civil damages? Find toys that are dangerous and file a class action suit against Amazon for selling them? This would circumvent the whole "Giant corp bought the regulators so they won't fine them for poisoning kids" thing.

creato2• 7 years ago

Agreed. I don't understand how Amazon gets away with so much shady shit. How are there not more legal problems for Amazon?

There have been some high profile incidents with other big companies with big legal budgets (Mercedes or Lexus? Apple? Nike?) but it all seems to go nowhere. It seems like it takes an army of lawyers to tackle one small incidence of shady behavior for one specific client. It never seems to rise up to the level of being handled as a pattern of behavior.

wtvanhest3• 7 years ago

I dont buy anything on Amazon that I need to rely on being a real product for safety after I received a fraudulent pair of solar eclipse glasses.

For my child, we dont buy any toys at all on Amazon. I especially dont buy branded stuff because I don't know what is commingled.

Amazon may not be losing money here yet, but eventually they will. Everyone that works there should be ashamed.

astura4• 7 years ago

How did you know the glasses were fake? Hopefully not the hard way...

divbzero4• 7 years ago

They should require amazon to randomly sample.

This doesn’t seem like the most sensible approach.

If my yogurt product is sold in grocery stores, isn’t it my responsibility to make sure my yogurt is produced properly and my responsibility to label it with the correct ingredients and nutrition facts? I wouldn’t expect it to be the grocery store owner’s responsibility to randomly sample my yogurt and check for its quality or ingredients.

Edit: Toned down inappropriately strong wording. Sorry for that. Didn’t mean to be a blowhard.

sk5t• 7 years ago

Your intuition about the grocery store's liability may have some deficiencies. A victim of food poisoning from negligence could absolutely bring suit against both the store and the yogurt maker.

jakobegger• 7 years ago

If you sell a product in your store imported from a chinese company with no presence in your country, that violates local laws and regulations, you are definitely liable when it turns out that product is poisoning children.

arcticbull2• 7 years ago

And yet if your Fage was contaminated with salmonella or lead you’d be first to sign on to the class action. On the other end would be anyone with a pulse between you and the manufacturer: the clerk, the grocery store, the distributor, the supplier and the manufacturer themselves. The fact is the end customer isn’t required to be their own certification lab. The onus falls on those who bring the products to market to ensure they don’t kill us. And yeah sometimes that means the grocery store, if they’re being willfully blind/negligent. I’m not saying they are, I have no context, though I don’t imagine Amazons attorneys told them to sign whatever was put in front of them.

By selling us a product the manufacturer and the grocery store warrant merchantability [1] and fitness for a particular purpose [2] ("implied warranty"). If you got a hot cup of lead instead of yogurt and the grocery story knew it was likely to happen and looked the other way, you’d be well within your rights to sue... everyone.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-314

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-315

Lammy• 7 years ago

It obviously shouldn’t require some children getting toxic school supplies, people sustaining burns or worse from counterfeit 18650 lithium battery cells, or any other suffering to get testing and certification on certain products, but I don’t think it’s as bad as you imply by “passing the buck”. It’s the easy way out for Amazon, sure, but if they do it enough times they will get a reputation for spotty inventory.

I’ve already experienced this a few times with certain classes of products they wouldn’t ship to California due to stricter regulation on how much ozone they produce. That’s why I had to go to Bed Bath & Beyond to buy a HEPA air filter for my bedroom during the fires last year: https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/research/indoor/ozone.htm

When it’s one product it’s easy to point fingers at the regulation for the inconvenience, but shouldn’t I be glad my filter fits those tighter regulations? The diesel car maker scandal is proof regulations can be cheated, but it seems to me like more regulation would get us to a point where that would be quickly exposed.

Let Amazon pass the buck to sellers. Regulate more things, and eventually it will be in their economic interest to run their own tests. They got where they were by having everything, and they can fall if that reputation does.

skookumchuck2• 7 years ago

If Amazon is required to test, what about every small store that buys inventory? Are they required to test it all, too? Such a regulation would put them all out of business.

DannyBee5• 7 years ago

Regulations are all pragmatic in the end.

For example, you could say "companies that make x million" are required to randomly test and certify they did (and will be fined 200% of profit for false certification).

and then you have a small entity program where the government is doing the sampling or something.

It is surely impossible to have a one size fits all that scales from "person selling at farmers market" to "amazon"

ricardobeat2• 7 years ago

It’s hard to sympathise with Amazon, but it seems very wrong to put the burden on the point of sale vs the supplier, especially for smaller stores.

The burden of not putting dangerous products out in the market should lay on the manufacturer, through certifications or some form of safety requirements. In this case no doubt Amazon has to pay if they’ve acted as an importer, but you wouldn’t expect your supermarket to randomly sample all their product.

maybe the US regulations need an update to make school supplies a more strict category?

DannyBee5• 7 years ago

"you wouldn’t expect your supermarket to randomly sample all their product."

I believe they actually do for some types of products.

simonh• 7 years ago

This will simultaneously make it expensive for those sellers actually trying to comply (lab testing is not cheap)

If they have a legitimate and well managed supply chain, it's not actually that difficult. The onus should be on the paint (or other materials) manufacturer to certify their product, with third party verification, and the certification flows down the chain.

Of course compliant materials are more expensive and the certification isn't cost free, but otherwise shady outfits wouldn't flout the law. However there shouldn't be any need for a distributor to do lab testing themselves. They just need to be conscientious and organised.

sokoloff2• 7 years ago

Whose to say that two otherwise safe materials used in manufacturing are safe when combined? Whose to say that this material which is safe when used as intended is also safe when subjected to elevated temperatures during a manufacturing operation? It doesn't seem like you can just accumulate stacks of paperwork to determine that an end product is sufficiently safe for use.

DannyBee5• 7 years ago

"If they have a legitimate and well managed supply chain, it's not actually that difficult. "

I don't necessarily disagree, but this is also really hard in practice for a lot of small manufacturers.

I happen to know a bunch about the childrens toy one for various reasons, so i'll go with that one. About 30-50% of wood finish manufacturers certify the relevant things for their finishes, but the wood coatings market is not a huge one (They make their living off auto and oem coatings, etc), and so unless you are using thousands of gallons a year, you are using a local distributor.

What you can get there will be hit and miss. In fact, it may not be possible to get a certified finish at all in your area.

(These are not paints, which are widely available).

Personally, i've had to order finishes from across the country in some cases, and i live in northern california (not exactly a small area :P).

(This wasn't for childrens toys, but it was to meet a similar regulation)

In very large markets, you don't have this problem because the components themselves tend to be plentiful.

Additionally, you are often required to test the combined product, not just the components.

NeedMoreTea2• 7 years ago

It's quite simple to build a system that works. UK retailers are liable for legality, safety etc. You don't just dump another new piece of crap on the shelf. Larger retailers have a formal process of becoming a supplier to them that has your products tested, and random sampling of what's coming in until you have proved yourself enough to be rated trusted supplier. There's a lot more to it than "will it sell?".

Even wholesalers and cash and carry places will normally have systems to ensure what small sellers are getting are safe and legal.

Amazon is the big fat exception as they're busy being "platform" and try to duck their responsibilities with "not our problem".

Nett result is I trust anywhere on the high street, even poundshop and other bottom end chains, more on safety and counterfeits etc than Amazon.

arethuza• 7 years ago

I used to work for a very large materials testing company - that had labs throughout the UK doing "due diligence" testing on products in shops.

They have people that actually go to large retailers and buy articles and they are tested continually. I got a life from one of the buyers at one of the labs and she mentioned that you get funny looks if you have a shopping trolley filled with, for example, one example of each type of cream cake being sold in that store.

swebs2• 7 years ago

They should require amazon to randomly sample.

Isn't that just the government passing the buck to Amazon then? The should have auditors from the FDA or NIST or whatever to do random tests at Amazon warehouses.

sitkack• 7 years ago

We should, given the scale and importance. Testing for heavy metals (lead, cadmium, etc) is easy with hand held XRF (xray fluorescence) [1].

[1] https://www.spectro.com/products/xrf-spectrometer/xsort-xrf-...

DannyBee5• 7 years ago

I think this is actually a reasonable option, i just tend more towards the side of "government is unlikely to be good at this" than others.

But for people who feel otherwise, and think it's necessary sure, no issue with it.

j-c-hewitt• 7 years ago

Should also add that Amazon is not really all that good at evaluating lab reports, nor could they be unless they changed what people evaluated the reports. They have a hard time telling the difference between a report doctored by someone with a fourth grade education and one from one of the most respected labs in the country.

bhouston• 7 years ago

There was horrible metals in some Canadian children's jewelry. As someone with a young child I do not care if it kills off small sellers if it prevents poisoning of my child.

Maybe there is an opportunity here for innovation or a startup to facilitate this testing?

docker_up• 7 years ago

FFS now we have to worry about this too? I guess I'm naive but I trusted Amazon but it makes sense that they just sold whatever they wanted without testing.

They should have dedicated 10X the $700,000 and have been fined, my God I'm upset right now.

zelpo• 7 years ago

Just last week I was picking my son up from school when I noticed he had a can of Xylene in his bookbag. I asked him where he got it and he said Aamazon

Symbiote4• 7 years ago

The primary reason I'm aware of for a youth to have xylene is solvent abuse (glue sniffing, essentially).

It's illegal to sell it to someone under 18 in the UK.

benatkin• 7 years ago

Or not. Amazon is just a platform, remember?

weiming• 7 years ago

We wanted to order Evian or Fiji bottled water from Amazon but were put off by reviews mentioning oddly attached labels, misshapen bottles, wrong tint on bottle caps. So we just stuck with local supermarket water delivery. Fake water? Wondering if anyone has tried ordering these.

Symbiote4• 7 years ago

Why would you want water carried from halfway around the planet anyway? That's an awful waste of resources.

jorblumesea• 7 years ago

Good, why is being online a pass for selling toxic products? I don't understand the standards we apply. If Target or Walmart sold lead laced school supplies people would flip, regardless of who actually made the product. It is on the distributor to guarantee the product quality and supply chain quality. I've always failed to understand why being online has made them untouchable.

edejong• 7 years ago

Exactly this. Perhaps the reasoning is that Amazon functions more like a bazaar, offering other companies a storefront. But then I’d expect expression of identity of these storefronts as well.

dgzl2• 7 years ago

Whenever you say "government should do xyz", you're actually saying "the government should steal money from taxpayers to carelessly attempt to do xyz".

azinman2• 7 years ago

As opposed to... careful Amazon? Careful maker of these toxic kid supplies?!

I don’t get this whole idea that government necessarily means poor quality. In using it to take away money, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s plenty that the gov already does well that we trust and depend on. If we had a bigger collective empathic view for others, a stronger notion of the value of civil service, and a closed wage gap between public and private, we could expect and get more from public institutions.

markjspivey• 7 years ago

well technically then it shouldn’t be assumed one way or the other, so your comment also shouldnt imply one way or the other ... right ?

the reality most humans “scientifically” should assume is that “governments” or “public institutions” aren’t people ...

and that means something ...

ebg132• 7 years ago

Who the fuck else is going to do it? Clearly not the market or the products wouldn't be there right now. Every time you argue against governments regulating markets, you ignore the fact that regulations get written in blood.

johnisgood14• 7 years ago

Is this another instance of "who will build the roads"?

https://mises.org/library/safety-and-market-economy

https://mises.org/library/what-keeps-us-safe-0

https://mises.org/library/what-will-keep-our-food-safe

https://mises.org/library/do-food-makers-want-kill-you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY5OYdGevAQ

Bonus: https://mises.org/wire/government-road-management-there-bett...

On top of that, your justification ("who the fuck else is going to do it?") of violence ("steal money from taxpayers") is quite alarming.

dgzl2• 7 years ago

You don't live a free life if someone else owns your money.

matt40773• 7 years ago

Taxation isn’t theft, and trying to reframe it as such is intellectually dishonest. Theft is the unlawful taking of property, and taxation is almost tautologically lawful.

You can argue for lower taxes, or even against all taxes, although the latter will probably just get you ignored in polite company. But don’t try to tap society’s consensus against actual crimes for your libertarian crusade.

Mirioron8• 7 years ago

So, if the government decides that all people with certain inborn characteristics should be killed, we shouldn't call it murder/genocide?

dang3• 7 years ago

Please keep classic ideological talking points off HN. They're tedious to the limits of tedium.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

css• 7 years ago

They did this recently to non-UL certified power equipment, no surprise they’re expanding to other product categories.

jxramos2• 7 years ago

What's the root cause precisely for where all this toxic material originates from? How does it get into a factory in the first place? Is it some kind of sabotage or is this stuff inherently in raw materials that require processing that is omitted? How does one find oneself with a bunch of lead in this day and age without seeking it out?

freeone30002• 7 years ago

Lead and cadmium are used in paints - lead for white, cadmium for yellow. The west has discontinued them for toxicity reasons, but they're still prevalent in China.

jxramos2• 7 years ago

Does that mean they’re deliberately added to paints? How does one produce paint with and without these chemicals?

bertm• 7 years ago

I worked for a long time as a chemical engineer making cadmium containing quantum dots. We had many discussions inside the company about complying with the EPA's TSCA regulations. https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-toxic-substance...

The reason why these regulations exist was because toys and consumer goods would be imported with red paint that contained cadmium.

Usually the importer is responsible for complying or at least reporting to the EPA under TSCA.

pjc50• 7 years ago

Again on the poor Amazon quality and co-mingling - is this a US only problem or is it also present in the EU? Note that we already have a CE marking requirement which is supposed to imply a certain level of safety.

AlexandrB• 7 years ago

As a retailer, Amazon has become incredibly lazy. Ironically, books is where this shows the most. In my area they now just ship them in padded envelopes, meaning at least 50% of the time the book arrives with dented corners, or a damaged cover.

netwanderer3• 7 years ago

It's pretty great to witness a policy or law that was applied correctly by a government to prevent further public damages, no matter how big the target corporation is.

rjmunro• 7 years ago

As a Brit, I find the title of this really hard to parse. I was trying to work out if "toxic school supplies" was some sort of brand of jewelry or something.

Why don't American's use an "and" here:

Amazon must remove toxic school supplies and kids’ jewelry from US marketplace

To me, that's much clearer.

Majromax• 7 years ago

Why don't American's use an "and" here:

Doing so is still standard American English. However, headline writing in particular has a tradition of extreme brevity, and this style leaves out conjunctions and adjectives (including articles).

As another example of ambiguity, the article title here isn't explicitly clear that Amazon must remove these items from its marketplace. Read literally, "from US marketplace" could imply (somehow) the entire United States retail environment.

Roark66• 7 years ago

This whole situation is the result of countries like China that most of those products are made in lack a real justice system. Anyone who has ever tried to sue a Chinese company in a Chinese court knows it is impossible for a foreigner to win. Ever. No matter the evidence. If China had a just justice system as exists in many other countries developing and developed this problem wouldn't exist. Unfortunately in today's China you can still be sure you will keep your money you made conning people as long as those people are foreigners.

apta• 7 years ago

And people still protest at the sanctions the US government is imposing on China. If it gets garbage products off the market, I'm all for it.

josefresco• 7 years ago

If Amazon doesn't get a handle on quality control, and product misrepresentation/swapping scams they will start to be perceived as Ebay/AliExpress/Wish.com where "anything goes".

I realize Ebay has controls to protect consumers, but the perception for everyday people is that it's risky, but you might find a deal.

I rarely use Ebay anymore, and in fact just purchased some sneakers there after probably 6+ years of not purchasing anything. I crossed my fingers, fully expected to be ripped off and lucked out, the product was exactly as advertised. I would not have purchased them if the discount wasn't so dramatic. This is all anecdotal based on my experience and the exp of my peer group.

djsumdog• 7 years ago

How exactly does this much lead get into these products? Are they on shared assembly lines with bullet manufacturing?!

swebs2• 7 years ago

China imports garbage and recycles it for raw materials. A lot of that garbage contains circuit boards, which use solder composed of 50% lead.

abeppu• 7 years ago

I get that kids are especially vulnerable, but shouldn't we also try to not sell stuff which is non-obviously toxic for use by adults also? Why should any consumer have to be afraid that a backpack or book cover has a high amount of lead?

mproud• 7 years ago

Only $700,000?

Amazon must remove toxic school supplies, kids’ jewelry from US marketplace

Related Stories