by Heidi Green
August 28, 2009

Inspired by the federal government’s wildly successful Cash for Clunkers car program, Toys R Us has developed its own trade-in program. Between Friday, August 28 and Sunday, September 20, parents are encouraged to turn in used baby products—specifically cribs, car seats, bassinets, strollers, travel systems, play yards, and high chairs—to any Babies R Us or Toys R Us store. In exchange, they will receive a coupon for 20 percent off the purchase of any new baby item, in any of these product categories, from one of 16 selected manufacturers.

A great trade-in?
According to the company’s press release, their “Great Trade-In” is an effort to address safety concerns about “certain used baby products, such as car seats and cribs,” which “are not the best candidates to be handed down or resold.” Using secondhand children’s products of these types is undesirable, says Toys R Us chairman and CEO Jerry Storch, because “children’s safety should not be compromised.” The program has two goals:

1. To help raise awareness of the importance of being vigilant about potentially unsafe children’s items that may still be in the marketplace.
2. To give consumers an incentive for removing used baby products from their garages and attics.

While the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) encourages parents to check its recalls database before using secondhand baby products, the consumer advocacy group Kids In Danger (KID) estimates that, in general, less than 30 percent of affected items are returned when a baby product is recalled.

Toys R Us also says that parents should be concerned about used products because:

1. New federal and voluntary standards for safety testing, particularly for cribs, have not been applied to older products.
2. Car seats can sustain invisible damage during accidents, and this can prevent them from functioning properly.
3. Car seats have expiration dates because the materials deteriorate, and this can make them less effective in a crash.
4. New product enhancements are regularly introduced which enhance product safety.
5. Products made of or that contain “certain materials, like wood and plastic” can deteriorate when exposed to extreme weather conditions, making them less safe.
6. Product booklets may be incomplete or missing.

Or not-so-great trade-in?
Toys R Us’ trade-in program may or may not make children in the United States safer, but it seems sure to succeed at a couple of other, unstated goals:

1. To diminish the supply of children’s products available for purchase.
2. To decrease consumer confidence in used goods.

The effort is built on the false promise that “Newer is better.” Logic tells us that just as yesterday’s car seat may (or may not) be the subject of today’s recall, today’s car seat may (or may not) be the subject of tomorrow’s recall. While I would never argue that older necessarily means better, we can’t state with confidence that the newer car seats… or cribs… or strollers… or high chairs are necessarily better, either.

What’s more, the trade-in program conjures the specter of sheer waste. Picture this, only with car seats, bassinets, cribs, strollers, high chairs, play yards, and travel systems piled high. Even goods that have passed federal safety standards are subject to disposal through this program. Toys R Us is encouraging consumers to turn in any and all used goods, not just those that have been recalled.

It wasn’t long ago that we here at baby gooroo wrote about the Story of Stuff. Under the guise of protecting child safety, Toys R Us’ program shamelessly replaces the popular mantra “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” with the capitalist “Buy, Buy, Buy.” All for a paltry 20 percent off coupon. (Tip: Put your name on their mailing list and you’ll receive coupons without trading in anything useful.)

Toys R Us’ bottle exchange made sense. Most non-glass baby bottles did contain bisphenol A (BPA) before the chemical garnered so much negative attention. Turn in an unsafe, BPA-including bottle and get a safe, BPA-free bottle. There was a need to get rid of each of the bottles they collected. In this case, is there a need? For each of the cribs, bassinets, strollers, high chairs, play yards, travel systems, and car seats?

Consumer education, not consumerism
A better answer to the problem of parents’ use of recalled products is not “Buy more stuff.” Rather, the solution seems to involve many interested parties:

• Manufacturers should be responsible for thorough testing of their products. When new standards are adopted, they should re-test previously released models of their product. (Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen without an industry-wide or legislative mandate.)

• Sellers must be responsible for checking recall notices. It’s already a federal offense to sell a product that has been recalled by its manufacturer. Let’s make sure that sellers know that, perhaps by cracking down on sellers and encouraging the media to cover such cases.

• Buyers must be responsible for checking recall notices. It takes only a matter of minutes to visit the CPSC website and check whether a product has been recalled. Parents must take responsibility for taking this step before using a secondhand baby product.

A trade-in like Toys R Us’ exchange would make more sense if it had criteria. (The “Cash for Clunkers” program did not, after all, apply to all cars—just those deemed to suffer from energy inefficiency.) Toys R Us would be serving a valuable purpose if it launched a campaign to increase parents’ awareness of product recalls—and encouraged them to bring in recalled gear for savings on new baby goods.

Parents, let’s aim to stay informed about product recalls. Let’s check the CPSC web site for recall information before we accept or purchase child products. But let’s hold child product vendors accountable for their actions, too—including those that fill up the landfills just to make a buck.