Ethics Surrounding Toys

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Ethics Surrounding the Safety of Children’s Toys and Products Toys and manufactured products surround children every day. These items are at their places of residence, friend’s houses schools and places where their parent’s shop. Thousands of toys are manufactured each year across the globe. Who is responsible for the safety of the toys and products used by children? Is it the manufacturer or the retailer? Do parents or guardians play a role in the safety since it is their child using the toy? The answer is the manufacturer, retailer and parents guardians all hold ethical responsibility toward children’s product and toy safety. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) study, “In 2013, there were an estimated 256,700 toy-related …show more content…

The CPSC has an entire division dedicated to the safety of children’s toys. In 1994, the Child Safety Protecting Act was passed. The law details out the following standards:
“The Child Safety Protection Act bans toys intended for children under age three if the toys pose a choking hazard. The act also requires warning labels on packaging for small balls, balloons, marbles and other toys and games containing small parts, when the games and toys are intended for use by children ages three to six.
The Federal Hazardous Substances Act bans toys that contain any hazardous substance, such as lead. It also bans toys that present an electrical, mechanical, or thermal hazard to children.
The Labeling Hazardous Art Materials Act requires the labeling of art materials that contain hazardous substances as inappropriate for use by children.
The Standard Consumer Safety Specification on Toy Safety has been voluntarily set by th toy industry. The goal of these standards is to minimize the risk of injury from toys “during normal use and reasonable foreseeable …show more content…

All toys designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age and younger must be third party tested and be certified with the issuance of a Children’s Product Certificate (cpsc.gov). This was a very important decision put forth by President George W. Bush at the time. Toy safety was just one aspect of this law. By implementing nationwide standards, this set a precedence for toy manufacturers to follow ensuring toys and products were safe for all children. Each manufacturer has to follow the same guidelines and rules, so there can be no huge safety discrepancies between products. Manufacturers such as Mattel and Fisher Price take a consequentialist view of ethics for toy safety. Their feelings lie in the “concern about outcomes or the consequences of actions and good choices involve options which produce the best benefit/harm ratio”

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