US Toy Company Reveals Safer Materials Strategy

US toy firm Radio Flyer has revealed its safer material strategy in a webinar this week on the Chemical Footprint Project (CFP).

The family-run company has taken part in the project, since it was co-created by the US NGO Clean Production Action (CPA), Lowell Centre for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and consultancy Pure Strategies in 2015.

The project tracks companies’ progress towards safer chemicals, by measuring the total mass of substances of concern in their products. It also evaluates participants' public disclosure and verification, management strategy and chemical inventory.

In the webinar, Eric Selner, director of operations and sustainability at Radio Flyer, said the company joined because "it gives the blueprint for what it takes to become a world class chemicals management company."

He said that because the company made a variety of products, including battery-powered cars, ride-on horses, wagons, scooters and trikes, it involved "many different materials, many different supply chains and complex challenges".

Prior to joining the programme, Mr Selner said, Radio Flyer did "a lot of testing on products" to make sure they met toy industry regulations, but since had become focused on "continuous improvement" and "not just testing to make sure there’s nothing bad in our products, but hopefully getting to a place where we’re using better chemicals."

The main benefit for the company, he said, was in "reducing risk", but there were also productivity gains through building trust in suppliers, resulting in a reduced need for internal auditing. For example, the company was able to identify the contents of the signature red pigment used in its products.

"Once we did the chemical footprint on the red pigment and got the full chemical formula, we had a lot of confidence in the supplier. If they were able to give us that information, then we trusted that supplier a lot more," he said.

Supply chain communication
The biggest challenge the company faced, he said, was getting large providers of resins and materials to cooperate with them as a small company.

"They’re making products they’re selling to thousands or hundreds of thousands of companies. Sometimes it’s hard to get those suppliers to disclose exactly what’s in those resins to us," he explained.

Another challenge, Mr Selner said, was "getting factories to buy into the challenge of sharing every chemical and doing a complete chemical footprint," which he said "is still pretty foreign".

He said that the company reduced its chemical footprint slightly last year and hopes to see a further reduction this year. It is currently carrying out an annual update to its restricted substances list (RSL).

According to the company website, it aspires to remove all PVC from its products. In 2014 its products were 98.5% PVC-free and it aims to raise this to 99% by the end of the year.

In 2011, Radio Flyer removed PVC from its folding tricycles and replaced it with ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA foam).

Mark Rossi, co-founder of the Chemical footprinting Project, said Radio Flyer’s participation in the project was "exciting at three levels", because it demonstrates simultaneously how small companies, those in the toy sector and article manufacturers in the beginning stages of chemicals management beyond compliance, can gain value from participation.

He added: "For companies at all three of these levels, Radio Flyer demonstrates the value of CFP in providing a blueprint for managing chemical risks beyond regulatory compliance across the entire organisation and all of its products."