If you were emperor for a day...

[Birdartist]

(er, maybe a year)...what sort of laws would you pass to provide consumer safety without putting small businesses out of business? Would you just keep all the current laws the same and enforce them, or do you think there are more sensible ways to improve the laws? What, specifically, would you do to make the law better, if you could?

If you're going to have additional legislation, here's what I think it should include:

1. Require us to provide a complete list of all the materials in each of our products (or product lines).

2. Expand exclusions for lots of basic raw materials like wood, fibers, non-toxic plants grown by us, etc

3. For each material bought from a supplier, provide the source (company name, dye lot, SKU, or whatever). Also state whether it has passed CPSIA testing.

4. For those of us using our own materials (wood from a tree in our yard, dyes made from our own plants, wool from our own sheep, or whatever) if the material weren't on the "Exempted" list, we would be required to provide either evidence of testing, or provide a satisfactory safety argument for the material in question. If the regulatory agency thought our explanation was OK, we could avoid testing. If not, perhaps we could be compelled. Hopefully, that wouldn't happen too often.

In short, people using only store bought materials could avoid all testing. That burden would properly rest with the manufacturer, and you wouldn't have to do repeat testing. People using home grown or found materials might still avoid testing if they could provide a convincing argument of probable safety, or if that material was exempt.

All of this information could be made easily available to prospective Etsy buyers. It could be set up so they could just click on our Materials section for more detailed information on content and safety.

I know it wouldn't be trivial to provide these materials lists, but isn't it better than having to pay for redundant, unnecessary testing? If I buy paint from a crafts store, and the company has already tested it, why should I have to test it again? Writing the law in a better way would avoid this, and would surely increase the ability of people to comply. Why isn't it good enough just to list the materials and where you got them?

The way the law is currently written, (if I understand it, and I'm not so sure I do) I think it will be very ineffective for a lot of reasons, primarily related to the fact that it is a compliance and enforcement nightmare. It will drive a lot of law abiding people out, due to the outrageous expense. Others might continue on, refusing to test anything. Dangerous, untested products could still get sold to unsuspecting consumers. I can't stress enough that for a law to be effective, there needs to be a high compliance rate. I do not believe there will be with this law.

Another thing to think about--does the law in its current form totally protect children anyway? Even if there was 100% compliance, (and there certainly won't be!) aren't there other toxic materials besides lead and phthalates? What if they inadvertently (or less likely, deliberately) found their way into a product? Wouldn't those stupid tests miss this and children would still be harmed? Also, tests aren't 100% accurate, and even lead and phthalates will sometimes be missed.

To play devil's advocate, I suppose some would say that simply listing materials and sources would be insufficient to assure consumer safety. They could argue that some people would conveniently leave out certain dangerous materials as a way to escape scrutiny, and this would provide an unacceptable safety risk. While I would agree that testing the final product is probably the safest measure, if hardly anyone does it, or is driven out of business because it's so expensive, what's the good of it? Isn't it better to have more people complying by making demands that are reasonable? I would argue that most people would comply with a materials and sources requirement, especially if they felt confident that their products were safe. Also, it would be risky to lie about materials, because if you were caught leaving something out, there would be penalties. Those who still refused would be resistant to testing their products anyway.

The benefits of materials and source listing is that we would have good documentation of the origin of materials, so that if (God forbid) a problem arose, investigators could get to the bottom of it and prevent more harm. If we rely on testing that hardly anyone does, and don't require info on origin of materials, much more harm is likely. Does the law as it's currently written even allow this kind of tracking? I know you have to list your components and have them tested, but does it require that you give the source, or does it just rely on testing? What if poisons slip through the testing phase? As the law is currently written, would we have any way to figure out where the harmful component came from?

OK, I've said my piece, and please forgive the long rant. I know everyone already has a headache over this. I hope I've given you some things to think about, but haven't worsened any headaches!

How would YOU make the law better?

[Birdartist]

Wow. No one wants to respond? Sniff, sniff. I know I've read some good ideas for improvement to this stupid law throughout a variety of threads, but I thought it would be fun to read some of your suggestions all in one thread. For all I know, there are some cool ideas out there that I missed, or ones not yet written about.

The Devil's in the details. It's always easier to criticize a dumb law than figure exactly how to write a better one. Perhaps this thread is proof of that.