Know what is in your environment

Today, Friday, March 26, 2010, 11:00 a.m. EDT the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) held a webinar to help small businesses understand complying with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), specifically with the Handmade Toy Alliance (HTA).

Gib Mullan, Assistant Executive Director, Office of Compliance and Field Operations for the U.S. CPSC gave the presentation as a “flow chart” and a “guide to help” webinar attendees understand which requirements apply to their products.

Essco Safety Check did not submit any specific questions for this webinar, but is constantly fielding questions about the CPSIA from small businesses.  It is our goal as a company to help businesses know what their products are made of using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Analyzers.

Here are some highlights to what the CPSC presented and where to find the specific information as well as some questions asked.
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The first basic question is do you make a children’s product? 

A “children’s product” means a consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger. In determining whether a consumer product is primarily intended for a child 12 years of age or younger, the following factors will be considered:

• A statement by the manufacturer about the intended use of the product, including a label on the product if such statement is reasonable.
• Whether the product is represented in its packaging, display, promotion or advertising as appropriate for use by children 12 years of age or younger.
• Whether the product is commonly recognized by consumers as being intended for use by a child 12 years of age or younger.

Requirements include:

CPSIA Section 101. Children’s Products Containing Lead; Lead Paint Rule http

CPSIA Section 102. Mandatory Third Party Testing for Certain Children’s Products 

CPSIA Section 103. Tracking Labels for Children’s Products 

Statement of Policy: Testing and Certification of Lead Content in Children’s Products

Section 101 of the CPSIA says that products designed or intended primarily for children 12 years old and younger (“children’s products”) cannot contain more than 300 parts per million (ppm) of lead in any accessible part, this is the “lead content limit.”  In addition to the 300 ppm content limit, there is a 90 ppm limit on lead in paint used on certain products such as furniture and children’s toys.

The CPSC issued guidance in August, 2009 to determine accessible parts.  

There have been determinations to identify materials whole lead content will not exceed 100 ppm and they include natural products, dyed and un-dyed textiles, cotton, wool, wood, paper, precious and semi precious stones.

But they do not include metal or plastic fasteners such as buttons, screws, grommets or sippers used in apparel or elsewhere.

Section 102 – Mandatory third party testing for certain children’s products.

Children’s products must be certified based on testing by a recognized third party test laboratory.  These requirements are being phased in over time.

Lead limits on most children’s products do not have to be certified until 2/10/2011 However, children’s jewelry must be certified to the 300 ppm lead content limit if that product was manufactured after 8/14/09 and any painted product would need to meet 90 ppm lead content limit.

Third-Party Testing of Children’s Products

The new legislation imposes an additional third-party testing requirement for all consumer products primarily intended for children twelve years of age or younger. Every manufacturer (including an importer) or private labeler of a children’s product must have its product tested by an accredited independent testing lab and, based on the testing, must issue a certificate that the product meets all applicable CPSC requirements.

CPSC is given authority either to accredit laboratories (“third party conformity assessment bodies”) for doing the required testing of children’s products or to designate independent accrediting organizations to accredit the testing laboratories, with one exception. The Commission itself must accredit laboratories that are controlled by the manufacturer of the children’s product in question. To assure their impartiality, government labs must also meet strict standards of independence. The CPSC must maintain an up-to-date list of accredited labs on its web site. CPSC has authority to suspend or terminate a laboratory’s accreditation in appropriate circumstances.

The third-party testing and certification requirements for children’s products are phased in on a rolling schedule. The statute requires the CPSC to issue laboratory accreditation regimes for different categories of children’s products. Once the CPSC issues the laboratory accreditation requirement for that category of children’s products, each children’s product in that category that is manufactured more than ninety days after that date must be tested and certified to the applicable requirements. The schedule for CPSC to issue the laboratory accreditation requirements and the certification schedule is set forth on the timeline shown in the chart below.

To find a recognized lab for the specific scope of inspection you are looking for please visit http://www.cpsc.gov/cgi-bin/labapplist.aspx, make sure that the lab is certified for your specific test requirements.  Not all labs are certified for all testing procedures.

Section 103 Tracking labels for children’s products

Section 103(a) of the new law requires manufacturers to have a tracking label or other distinguishing permanent mark on any consumer product primarily intended for children twelve and younger. The tracking label must contain certain basic information, including the source of the product, the date of manufacture and more detailed information on the manufacturing process such as a batch or run number. The scope of this provision is quite broad in that it applies to all children’s products, including, but not limited to, items such as clothing or shoes not just toys and other regulated products. Congress modified the requirement for tracking labels with the phrase “to the extent practicable” recognizing that it may not be practical for permanent distinguishing marks to be printed on small toys and other small products that are manufactured and shipped without individual packaging.

The Commission has the authority to issue a rule further defining the detail required in the tracking labels. Moreover, the Commission also has the ability to require in the future that the additional information contained on tracking labels for children’s products be expanded to cover all consumer products.

Section 103(c) of the new law also addresses the types of claims a manufacturer can make regarding its compliance with mandatory or voluntary safety rules. After October 12, 2008, no product packaging, advertisements or labels can refer to any safety standard unless the product complies with that standard.

Effective Date: The requirement for tracking labels is effective one year after the date of enactment or August 14, 2009. The requirements prohibiting advertising claims are effective 60 days after enactment or October 13, 2008.

Here is the Statement of Policy: Interpretation and Enforcement Of Section 103(a) of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act

Which requirements apply?
Is your product a children’s article or furniture that bear paint or similar surface coating?
Is your product intended for under 36 months?
Is it a child care article for children under 4?
Durable nursery product for children under 5?
Is your product a toy?
Is it clothing or children’s sleepwear?
The paint limit standard under the CPSIA, Section 101 is 90 ppm and took effect on 8/14/09.   It applies the same to items as previsouly sold under the 600 ppm limit

Children’s products manufactured after 8/14/09 must be certified to the 90 ppm limit if they bear paint or similar surface coatings.

“Small parts” ban for all items that are intended for children under 36 months of age.

Small parts are “as received” or under “use and abuse” testing.  Basically you can have little parts when you open a package or if it is tested for example using a pull test or drop test, small parts can’t be the result from the test.
 Small parts are those fitting ht a small part cylinder (it is close to the size of a toilet paper roll, but a little smaller)

Here is the regulatory summary for small parts regulations, toys and products intended for use by children under 3 years old

Here is the regulatory summary for lead contain paint

Here is the regulatory summary for children’s sleepwear

Here is the regulatory summary for clothing textiles

Other regulatory summaries can be found here

Phthalates

Section 108. Products Containing Certain Phthalates

Good news!  Phthalate testing is for plasticized components only.  The limit is 1000 ppm for the 6 phthalates.

There was brief mention of:

Section 104. Standards and Consumer Registration of Durable Nursery Products

and

Section 106. Mandatory Toy Safety Standards

Some questions included:

When does a choke hazard warning need to be used?
If you make an item for children under 3 years old, small parts are banned.  Toy or games for children 3 to 6 years old, but not all products, some craft products are not thought of as toys or games and thus a choke warning is not needed.

Tracking labels, what does ascertain mean? 
Ascertain means information about the product doesn’t’t need it to be on the product as long as the consumer has the ability to get to the information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  No phone numbers unless that phone is manned 24 hours a day.  A web solution is the best choice if you don’t want to put this information on your product.

Children’s jewelry, is it the same definition as California? And are hair accessories considered jewelry? 
Hair accessories are not considered jewelry by the CPSC, the they are considered accessories by California.

Screen printing?  There is not just one type of screen printing.  The key to regulation is to the process and if that process creates a surface coating? 
If that process creates a surface coating than that would require a lead test.  Many if not most create a coating and subject to the 90 ppm lead limit.  If the process/ink/dye sinks in to the fabric than you are subject to the 300 ppm limit.  If you have dye, you can do determinations and take advantage of these rules and say a dye is ok.  You must be confident and knowledgeable about the products.

This was just some highlights from today’s webinar.  The CPSC will be posting a link to the video, when they make it available, I will post a link to it here.

If you have any questions, please contact us at info@essco-safetycheck.com

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