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US CPSC Exempts Certain Engineered Wood Products from Testing in Children’s Products

SafeGuardSJune 29, 2018

The CPSC has recently published a final rule to exempt certain engineered wood products from third party testing for specific regulated substances in children’s products. These new measures will become effective on July 23, 2018.

 

In August 2008, President George W Bush signed [1] a landmark piece of legislation, the ‘Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA)’, into law. This law contains important sections to ensuring the safety of children’s products. These include, inter alia, the following sections: 

 

  • Section 101 ‘Children’s products containing lead; lead paint rule’
  • Section 106 ‘Mandatory toy safety standards’ (ASTM F963)
  • Section 108 ‘Prohibition on sale of certain products containing specified phthalates’. This was amended by CPSC’s Final Rule of October 2017 [2], restricting a total of eight phthalates (DEHP, DBP, BBP, DINP, DIBP, DPENP, DHEXP and DCHP) in toys and childcare articles (82 FR 49938)   

On June 22, 2018, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) published a final rule in the Federal Register (83 FR 28983 [3]) to exempt certain untreated and unfinished engineered wood products (EWPs) manufactured from virgin wood or pre-consumer wood waste from third party testing for compliance with lead content, ASTM F963 elements or phthalates in children’s products, toys and child care articles. This specific exemption applies to the following EWPs:

  • Particleboard (PB)
  • Hardwood Plywood (HWPW)
  • Medium-Density Fiberboard (MDF)    

Since the final rule provides relief from existing testing requirements under the CPSIA, the Commission concluded that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) minimum 30 days is sufficient. Thus, the effective date is July 23, 2018.

Highlights of the final rule are summarized in Table 1.

83 FR 28983, June 22, 2018
16 CFR Part 1252 ‘Children’s Products, Children’s Toys and Child Care Articles: Determinations Regarding Lead, ASTM F963 Elements and Phthalates for Engineered Wood Products’, Final Rule
SubstanceScope                                Scope of accessible untreated and unfinished engineered wood products made from virgin wood or pre-consumer wood waste exempted from third-part testingEffective Date
Lead content
  • Children’s products
  • Toys
  • Child care articles
  • PB, HWPW and MDF
July 23, 2018
ASTM F963 soluble elements
Phthalates
  • PB and MDF
  • HWPW, provided these do not contain polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) adhesives

Table 1

 

Definitions

ItemAbbreviationCAS               PhthalateItemAbbreviationCAS                   Phthalate
1BBP85-68-7Butylbenzyl5DHEXP (DnHP)84-75-3Di-n-hexyl
2DBP84-74-2Di-n-butyl6DIBP84-69-5Diisobutyl
3DCHP84-61-7Dicyclohexyl7DINP28553-12-0 &
68515-48-0
Diisononyl
4DEHP117-81-7Di(2-ethylhexyl)8DPENP131-18-0Di-n-pentyl

Table 2

Next step:

Stakeholders are advised to comply with the latest requirements for children’s products for the US market.

SGS is committed to providing information about development in regulations for consumer products as complimentary services. Through a global network of laboratories, SGS provides a wide range of services including physical/mechanical testing, analytical testing and consultancy work for technical and non-technical parameters applicable to a comprehensive range of consumer products.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for further information. For enquiries, please contact:

Hingwo Tsang
Global Information and Innovation Manager
t: +852 2774 7420

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