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Dr. Dara O'Rourke is a professor in the Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, and formerly a professor at MIT. He studies the environmental, social, and health impacts of global supply chains.

GoodGuide helps you find safe, healthy, and green products that are better for you and the planet.

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By Dara O'Rourke, November 27, 2009

Just in time for the holidays, the GoodGuide science team set out to find the Greenest Toy Companies of 2009. We evaluated over 40 leading brands on their materials – from the type of plastics they use, to the source of their wood, to the their paints and coatings – their energy use, environmental management systems, customer relations, health & safety programs, treatment of workers, labor rights, and transparency.

Over three quarters of the toys sold in the US are now made in China. Many of these are constructed from low-cost plastics such as PVC, and then treated with low-cost paints and coatings. Even many of the wood toys sold in the US are now made from pine grown in the US or Canada, shipped to China, processed and painted, and then shipped back to the US.

The intense pressure to lower costs and speed up delivery has made it increasingly hard for toy companies to not follow this low-cost strategy. Our research found the following brands stand out for their commitment to putting the environment and child safety ahead of cost cutting.

By Dara O'Rourke, December 09, 2008 · Posted under Health Issues

A parent’s job has always been difficult. But this holiday season it seems you need a team of elves with PhDs to find out where the toys you’re buying came from and what chemicals might be lurking inside them. Of 1,500 popular toys tested by HealthyToys.org, 1 in 3 were found to contain significant levels of toxic chemicals such as lead and arsenic.

GoodGuide has assembled a team of science elves and partnered with leading nonprofit groups around the country — such as HealthyToys.org, the Center for Health and Environmental Justice, Healthy Child Healthy World, and the City of San Francisco — to identify safe toys and toxic toys on store shelves.

Our Holiday Guide to Safe Toys includes only toys that are free from chemicals of concern such as lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, bromine, and phthalates. Hopefully, they’re also fun for your kids! We've searched for everything from safe dolls to safe puzzles, from safe arts and crafts to safe action figures.

Continue reading to see our list of Safe Toys...

By Dara O'Rourke, December 09, 2008 · Posted under GoodGuide Happenings, Health Issues

According to Consumers Union, product recalls due to safety hazards were up 19% this year, with over 29 million children’s products recalled in the last 12 months alone and over 12 million toys recalled due to lead contamination.

A new law passed in August was designed to protect children from hazards in toys by tightening standards for lead and by banning phthalates outright in toys. These chemicals are causes for serious concern: lead is a known childhood developmental toxin, while phthalates have been banned in Europe for almost a decade due to suspected threats to the hormonal system, including risks of boys being born with smaller penises and undescended testicles.

Unfortunately, despite the continued flow of problematic toys into the US, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recently issued a legal interpretation of this law effectively delaying its implementation. The CPSC has ruled (in response to industry lobbying) that products manufactured before February 10, 2009, are grandfathered in and not subject to the new safety rules.

This means that toxic toys with phthalates can be sold on US toy store shelves not only this Christmas, but for many years to come. The Wall Street Journal reports that some toy makers are now stockpiling toys with phthalates and may be flooding the market with these products in order to sell off their inventory before the federal ban takes effect.

Particularly troubling for parents is that toy companies do not have to disclose the “ingredients” in their products. It is thus almost impossible to know whether a rubber ducky on the shelves contains lead, phthalates, or other hazards. US shoppers may unknowingly be purchasing unsafe toys during this and many future holiday seasons.

GoodGuide has been working to fill this gap in information by developing a database of safe toys that rates toys for lead, cadmium, mercury, phthalates, environmental performance, treatment of workers, safety recalls, and other issues. We have partnered with HealthyToys.org, the Center for Health and Environmental Justice, Healthy Child Healthy World, and the City of San Francisco, to pull together the best available information for concerned shoppers.

Today, we are releasing our ratings of the safest toys. Visit GoodGuide.com or download the newest update to our iPhone application for all of this data. You will be surprised to see how many products from famous brands still contain hazardous materials. And you will be relieved to know you can still find safe toys while you’re online or out shopping in a store - you just have to know where to look.

Arm yourself with GoodGuide’s information on safe toys, tell your friends, and then have a safe and healthy holiday!

GoodGuide™ provides the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies. GoodGuide's mission is to help you find safe, healthy, and green products that are better for you and the planet. From our origins as a UC Berkeley research project, GoodGuide has developed into a totally independent "For-Benefit" company. We are committed to providing the information you need to make better decisions, and to ultimately shifting the balance of information and power in the marketplace.

Disclaimer: While GoodGuide strives for accuracy and completeness, the GoodGuide site, and all data on it, is intended solely for informational use. Do not use this site for medical purposes, and consult your physician if you have any condition or allergy or other medical issue relating to products and their ingredients.

©2009 GoodGuide, Inc. All rights reserved by GoodGuide and its licensors and data providers. All marks, brands, and names belong to the respective companies and manufacturers and are used solely to identify the companies and products.