Announcements / Press Release

Safe Toys Web Site Sees Daylight, Gets Healthy Dose of Attention

Ann Arbor, Michigan — December 29, 2007 — Amid escalating concerns of toxic chemicals in children’s toys this holiday season, parents have a new weapon in the battle to protect kids from potentially hazardous products: HealthyToys.org. Using this web site, parents can find out which toys contain the highest and lowest levels of chemicals known to be potentially dangerous, such as lead, mercury, arsenic, polyvinyl chloride, and others. Site visitors can find detailed chemical test results for more than 1,200 toys, searching by name, brand, or type of toy.

HealthyToys.org is the brain child of the Ecology Center, an Ann Arbor-based not-for-profit organization, along with several other environmental and consumer groups nation-wide. The site itself was developed and programmed by Mouko, Inc., an information technology company also based in Ann Arbor. “When the Ecology Center approached us about creating this site, we knew immediately that they were on to something big,” said Mouko, Inc. co-founder, Justin Laby, “but none of us realized just how big until launch day.”

The site, which debuted in early December, was immediately lauded by media across the nation. “It’s very easy to use, that’s the good news,” said Veronica De La Cruz, Internet Correspondent for CNN's American Morning. According to De La Cruz, the new site contrasts starkly with the tough-to-navigate web site of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the government body that oversees product recalls. “It’s comprehensive,” added De La Cruz, describing the new site.

Although testing of toys by the Ecology Center and partner organizations began mid-year, the site did not begin to take shape until October. Ideas for new site features arrived even in the final days leading to the site’s official public release. “We knew HealthyToys would be important, not only to the Ecology Center, but to a lot of concerned parents, and that timing was critical,” said Laby. “The site needed to be up in early December at latest so people would have time to educate themselves before finishing their holiday shopping. We were more than willing to forgo some sleep; missing a deadline is not an option we ever really consider, and we wanted the site to have features people would find useful.” HealthyToys.org allows visitors to nominate their own toys, should they be missing from those tested. According to Laby, this popular feature was among the last added.

One of the biggest challenges for Mouko, Inc., which donated considerable time to the project, was bringing data from the nearly 3,000 product components tested into a common format. “The testing was done by a bunch of groups across the country, and there wasn’t much time to decide on a common way to share the data,” said Alexander Ade, co-founder of Mouko, Inc. and data manager for the HealthyToys project, “so we spent a lot of time on quality assurance, working closely with the Ecology Center up until the final hours, when new data was still rolling in, to make sure as much accurate information as possible was available from day one.”

Following massive nationwide press, more than 1.5 million pages were viewed on HealthyToys.org’s first day, a level of popularity that far surpassed predicted levels. Consequently, the site slowed to a halt. “It’s very popular today, as you can imagine,” said Bill Tucker of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, referring to HealthyToys, which launched at 12am on December 5th. Even as he said this, Mouko, Inc. was working to offset server load, using their own web site to alleviate some of HealthyToys' burden. By the next day, site traffic had normalized. “Not every client has thousands and thousands of dollars to spend on high-end technology from day one,” said Laby. “Sometimes creativity is a better solution than simply throwing money at a problem.”

As of December 28, more than 6,000 new toys had been nominated for testing, ensuring that the many people involved with HealthyToys.org will have their hands full for the foreseeable future. Work is already under way to streamline the testing and data loading process, and you can expect a lot more from the folks behind HealthyToys.org in coming weeks and months.

More Information

  1. HealthyToys.org

  2. “Safe Toys” Segment on CNN’s American Morning (with Veronica De La Cruz)

  3. The Ecology Center