For a growing child, every moment is learning. Learn, forget, re-learn and master the life. To do this, they seek help from toys. Toys provide them artificial simulation opportunities.
Over the past century, toys have become the focus of a massive industry, the opening wedge for the commoditization of childhood, icons of cultural controversy, subjects of serious (and not-so-serious) scholarship, and sometimes even tools for psychological research.
To avoid anti-growth effects of toys, it is important to keep them simple. Since this is not the topic for this note, we will park it aside.
Most toys in India are dumped by China, made up of toxic plastic. Even branded toys. Here are some researches related to plastic toys.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals in baby teethers
In laboratory tests, two out of ten teethers, plastic toys used to sooth babies’ teething ache, release endocrine disrupting chemicals. One product contains parabens, which are normally used as preservatives in cosmetics, while the second contains six so-far unidentified endocrine disruptors.
“Our study shows that plastic toys are a source of undesirable chemicals. Manufacturers, regulatory agencies and scientists should investigate the chemical exposure from plastic toys more thoroughly”, Wagner concludes from the study. The additives have only limited benefits for the quality of the product, but can represent a potential health issue. This is especially true for babies and infants, whose development is orchestrated by a delicately balanced hormonal control and who are more susceptible to chemicals exposures than adults.
Household Chemicals May Impair Thyroid in Young Girls
Early childhood exposures to specific phthalates were associated with depressed thyroid function in girls at age 3, according to scientists at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Phthalates, a class of chemicals thought to disrupt the endocrine system, are widely used in consumer products from plastic toys to household building materials to shampoos.
Is there something up with stinky inflatable pool toys?
Inflatable toys and swimming aids, like bathing rings and arm bands, often have a distinctive smell which could indicate that they contain a range of potentially hazardous substances. Some of these compounds, which include carbonyl compounds, cyclohexanone, phenol and isophorone, might be critical when present in higher concentrations in children’s toys, say Christoph Wiedmer and Andrea Buettner, who are authors of a study in the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (ABC), which is published by Springer.
Lead author Wiedmer (Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Germany) and his team conducted tests using an inflatable beach ball, a pair of swimming armbands and two bathing rings they bought off the shelf from local stores and online suppliers in Germany. A small piece of material from each sample was analysed using a variety of material analysis techniques, including one that takes infrared measurements, and it was concluded that the inflatable objects were all made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
The researchers then investigated the molecular make-up of the distinctive smells arising from the pool toys. They extracted detectable odours from each sample using solvent extraction and high vacuum distillation methods, and then identified the main odorants using a combination of sensory and common analytical approaches.
Between 32 and 46 odours were detected in each sample, of which up to thirteen were quite intense. The majority of these odorants were identified and among these were several fatty smelling mono- or di-unsaturated carbonyl compounds and their epoxidised derivatives, but also odouractive organic solvents such as cyclohexanone, isophorone, and phenol.