Mattel's recent recall of more than 10 million of its toys made in China, including the popular Barbie, because the toys contained lead paint and tiny magnets that could be swallowed, was perhaps unprecedented. The timely recall may have prevented any untoward incident as far as kids were concerned, although the process of recall itself led to the Chinese factory owner committing suicide.
But how tragic and serious the consequences could have been can be gauged from the fact that several injuries had been reported earlier after which a toy, named Polly Pocket, was recalled last November. This has been happening in the past too. Since 2003, while one child in the US has died, 19 others needed surgery after swallowing magnets used in toys. Three children suffered intestinal perforations after they swallowed more than one magnet and required surgery. When more than one magnet is swallowed, they can attach to each other and cause intestinal perforation, infection or blockage, which can be fatal. In a similar manner, lead and other heavy metals used in toys are toxic if ingested by young children. Lead was the reason for the most recent recall by Mattel.
The incident raised a few perturbing questions. Did Mattel provide any guidelines to the Chinese factory? If so, why were not quality checks able to sniff out the dangerous anomaly before the toy consignments found their way into the homes of customers? Did the Chinese factory resort to unfair manufacturing practice so as to ensure bigger profits or did something go wrong in its manufacturing process? Is it really not profitable to manufacture toys without incorporating toxic pigments and dangerous components?
Well, Rahul Butalia feels otherwise. Proprietor of Rubabu Toys, his mantra is making toys out of discarded items. And as he demonstrated during his engaging lecture he is making profits from the green production that he practices. In fact, he is the only toy exporter from the country with export orders coming in from countries like Switzerland, Finland and several other European countries.
He makes his toys from the sap of rubber trees, which is a truly renewable product. Most toys are generally made from PVC which is hard; to soften it DOP is put into it. This, incidentally, is a deadly poison that mimics the female hormone. In fact, PVC is banned in Europe. But why then do most toy manufacturers use PVC and not something like rubber, which Rahul uses for his toys. For one, rubber is much more difficult to work with than PVC. It involves a lot of manual labour, which obviously, pushes up costs and drives down profits. Toy makers avoid rubber because it is troublesome.
But Rahul has created a niche for himself becoming perhaps the only toy maker in the world working with rubber. He gets his orders from countries far and wide at the prices he commands on the strength of the highly skilled workmanship he employs and the impeccable quality his toys adhere to. To top it all, there are hardly any effluents moving out from his factory, whether into the air or into the water. Whatever compounds are put into the manufacturing process get used up and the leftovers are reused. Ammonia that comes out is washed and converted into harmless ammonium hydroxide. Truly, green manufacturing at its best.
Toys turn toxic on account of the colourful pigments used to paint them and more often the chief culprit is the solvent used. Rahul started off with toluene as the solvent since it is not harmful. However, since it belonged to the family of benzene, which is often implicated in the development of diseases such as cancer, he moved on to ethyl acetate extracted from ordinary vinegar. This solvent is absolutely safe. Moreover, the ethyl acetate fumes emanating out are treated and rendered harmless. Besides, for colour, dyes rather than pigments are used. These dyes have been tested for safety. So, despite being very colourful and attractive, the toys he makes, as attested by the audience who were handed a piece each, do not break, do not scratch and do not hurt.
Not satisfied with the green manufacturing process that he so religiously follows, Rahul even plans to bring down the energy consumption by installing solar heaters, to meet his huge requirement of hot water, and solar chillers that would further cut down the amount of harmful CFCs let out into the atmosphere.
Although one feels that parents today are ready to pay the right price for the safe toy, one does feel let down by the absolutely lax quality standards followed in the country. Rahul's toy making process and his toys too found admirers in the audience who wanted such toys to be available in India too. But he sounded a bit too disillusioned with the typical Indian trader and also the government for not giving the toy industry its due place. Perhaps Rahul's green endeavour might just succeed in opening the eyes of the authorities.