Host: What can parents look for on the packaging of children's toys to avoid dangerous plastics?
Michael Schade: So when parents are looking for toys and baby products, for the one they want to avoid toys and baby products that are made out of vinyl or polycarbonate, those are the numbers 3 or the number 7. Increasingly, we have been seeing toys that are labeled PVC Free, so you can look for toys that are labeled PVC Free. You can also look for toys that are labeled Phthalate Free and Lead Free.
If you see any of those signs, that's a sure-fire signification that it is safer for your child or infant. The best thing to do though is to look for toys that are made, that are labeled PVC Free, because sometimes you may have a PVC toy that's labeled Phthalate Free, but there maybe other toxic additives that's in the vinyl toy, such as lead or cadmium or organotins.
So that's why we recommend avoiding PVC wherever possible. So looking for toys that are labeled PVC, Lead or Phthalate Free is the way to go and avoiding those with the numbers 3 or with the number 7. There is a really terrific website that parents can go to called healthytoys.org
healthytoys.org is a database of toys that are toxic free, as well as those that contain harmful chemicals. So parents can go to that website to identify which popular toys are out there in the market that contain some of these harmful chemicals that we are most concerned about.
There is actually a mechanism on this website that you can actually send a text message to the website and it will tell you whether or not a toy that you are --, when you are at the store, you can send a text message listing the toy, and they will tell you whether or not the toy is safe or not.
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