Mr. Squiggles!
December 8, 2009 by max · Leave a Comment
The recent dust-up around GoodGuide’s report on Mr. Squiggles, their subsequent retraction, and all the chirping and squeaking from both ends of our consumer and anti-consumer culture misses the point. Read all about the methods, issues.
The debate misses the point that included in GoodGuide’s study were these results:
Bakugan 7-in-1 Maxus Dragonoid 466-807 ppm Chromium
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Bakugan 7-in-1 Maxus Helios 143-756 ppm Chromium
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Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Laughing Farm 193 ppm Chromium
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Zhu Zhu Pet Hamster Mr Squiggles 93-106 ppm Antimony
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International Playthings My First Purse (Purple) 76 ppm Antimony
The highest ‘safe’ (provided you trust the US government to regulate these things) levels of both chromium and antimony for adults are 60 ppm. We didn’t hear a foul called by the folks over at Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Laughing Farm. They’re too busy having an amazingly good time. The Bakugan people didn’t even respond, and their Dragonoid (yeah it’s like a dragon and android, super-sweet) thingies seem to pretty much be made of chromium.
The coolest thing to come out of this, besides hearing grown men say ‘Mr. Squiggles’, was that the makers of Mr. Squiggles – St. Louis-based Cepia LLC – released their environmental hazard tests for little Squiggles: http://www.zhuzhupets.com/Zhu%20Zhu%20Pets-EN71.pdf – to prove that he’s clean.
Great. This is the sort of thing for which GoodGuide exists. For a company to release this info is very rare, and for a company to even have this info on hand is rare. GoodGuide exists to create transparency, and they did with Mr. Squiggles. Guaranteed the folks at Bakugan don’t have it, or don’t want it out there for people to read. So Cepia wins. Mr. Squiggles wins. Companies who are out in front of this wave of consumer knowledge will win, and they’ll win through transparency.
So kudos, GoodGuide – it’s probably not a happy scene there today, no Laugh & Learn Laughing Farm, no. But through adversity we learn our impacts. So it is.
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