December 28, 2020
The European Commission recently evaluated the Toy Safety Directive’s performance and concluded that the safety requirements of the directive still play a crucial role in restricting dangerous toys from the market before they can affect the health of children.
However, the Commission noted that the directive’s effectiveness as regards the protection of children is limited in the following aspects that require urgent attention:
- Specific limit values for chemicals can only be set for toys for children under 36 months of age and toys that are intended to be placed in the mouth, instead of for all toys.
- Carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic for reproduction (CMR) chemicals may be present in toys if they do not exceed certain concentrations, which are set in a separate piece of legislation and which are useful to classify chemical mixtures as dangerous. The concentrations allowed however appear to be too high and can still pose a risk to children.
- Limit values for carcinogenic nitrosamines and nitrosatable substances (that may convert into nitrosamines). However, a Commission Decision of 2012 has recognized that these limit values are too high and can still pose a risk to children.
- Labeling requirements for specific allergenic substances in certain experimental toy sets. However, these requirements cannot be easily updated when the related lists of allergenic substances are being updated.
Publication Date:
Nov. 19, 2020