Bwah hah. Made you look.

Okay, folks it’s been 8 years of me apologizing. Really, I’m sorry about the whole W thing. We’ll do better next time. In the interim, our President has signed a really important bill into law.

Lead is now banned from children’s toys. Can we all do a happy dance?

Guess what?

The bill also bans a chemical called phthalates that is widely used to make plastic products softer and more flexible. I am positively swooning. Then I did a little research and stood still.

It seems to me that adults could use a little protection from phthalates too. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH) phthalates may interfere with the DNA in semen. I hate to sound ungrateful but do we need phthalates? Would it be okay if all our plastics weren’t soft and flexible?

If I had a toddler I wouldn’t put away the test kits just yet, but I would relax a little. Now, it might be a little optimistic to assume that other countries would be concerned about our laws. *hat tip to China*

Moving forward instead of mere recalls will we see criminal charges in addition to massive financial penalties for toy makers who don’t comply? According the AP, the budget for the Consumer Product Safetly Commission (CPSC) will increase to $136 million by 2014. Perhaps the CPSC will even regain it’s teeth, since he maximum fine goes from $1.8 to $15 million.

This is a win for parents and our children, but mostly kids in 2014 and beyond. I wanted to be more optimistic but I’m seeing it as simply a good start. Not a solution.

Thanks W… I thunk you dun good. (As written by a child not left behind)

Jessica Gottlieb is raising two children in Los Angeles, and she writes about it at Jessica Gottlieb. This is an original post to EcoChildsPlay.