A number of New York counties are following the lead set earlier this year by Albany County and its Toxic Free Toys Act, and enacting laws banning certain chemicals in toys and children’s products. Westchester, Suffolk and Rockland Counties have all moved to place new regulations on children’s products.
Westchester’s law, set to go into effect May 2016, would prohibit the sales of children’s products containing formaldehyde, benzene, lead, mercury, antimony, arsenic, cobalt and cadmium. Suffolk’s law sets total content limits on heavy metals in children’s products—mercury, antimony, arsenic or cobalt above 40 ppm of total content per chemical; lead above 100 ppm of total lead content in accessible parts or above 90 ppm in paint or any similar surface coating; and cadmium above 75 ppm of total cadmium content—and will be enforced beginning July 2016. Rockland County’s regulations, which went into effect October 11, 2015, ban the sale of children’s products containing benzene, lead, mercury, antimony, arsenic, cobalt and cadmium.
Albany’s Toxic Free Toys Act, Local Law J, had been set to go into effect on January 2016 but is currently in litigation brought by the Safe To Play Coalition, which claims these county-level laws duplicate existing federal regulations and create patchwork safety regulations untenable for manufacturers to meet.
