US - Congressional and Executive Activities

US - Congressional and Executive Activities

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is seeking comments by 23 December 2019 on a proposal to ease certain testing requirements for children’s toys and child care articles containing certain unfinished manufactured fibres. If the proposal is adopted, the specified fibres would not be required to undergo thirdparty testing for compliance with the ASTM F963 requirements for certain elements or the phthalate content provisions.

CPSC regulations require that surface coating materials and accessible substrates of children’s toys and child care products that can be sucked, mouthed or ingested comply with the solubility limits of standard ASTM F963 for eight elements (antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and selenium) and also be certified as not containing phthalates above 0.1 percent. The proposal would establish that five unfinished manufactured fibres – nylon, polyurethane (spandex), viscose rayon, natural rubber latex, and acrylic and modacrylic – do not exceed the prescribed solubility limits and that these five fibres along with polyester (polyethylene terephthalate, or PET) do not exceed the prescribed phthalate content limit.

As a result, accessible component parts of children’s toys and child care articles made with the aforementioned fibres would not be required to be thirdparty tested pursuant to section 14(a)(2) of the Consumer Product Safety Act as well as 16 CFR part 1107. PET fibres would still need to be tested for the prescribed ASTM F963 elements because CPSC research indicates that antimony can be present in such fibres at levels in excess of ASTM F963 requirements.

Children’s toys containing the specified fibres may include coverings or fill of stuffed, plush or other soft toys, doll clothes, puzzle mats and other play mats. Child care products containing the specified fibres may include sleepwear, bibs and other products that facilitate sleeping or feeding.