CPSC Bans Importation of Children's Toys, Child Care Articles Containing Four Plasticizer Chemicals

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is setting a ban on the use of certain phthalates, a group of chemicals commonly used as plasticizers, in children’s toys and child care articles, it said. The agency’s final rule newly prohibits the importation, manufacture or distribution of children’s toys and child care articles with concentrations of more than 0.1 percent of four phthalates, and expands an existing temporary ban on children’s toys and child care articles of a fifth phthalate. The final rule takes effect April 25, 2018.

The phthalates newly banned by the final rule are diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP), di-npentyl phthalate (DPENP), di-n-hexyl phthalate (DHEXP) and dicyclohexyl phthalate (DCHP). The final rule also continues and expands the existing interim ban on diisononyl phthalate (DINP) to prohibit DINP at concentrations over 0.1 percent in all children’s toys, not just those that can be placed in a child’s mouth, as well as child care articles. The final rule also restates an existing ban on importation of any children’s toy or child care article that contains concentrations of more than 0.1 percent of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP) or butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP).

The final rule is “substantially the same” as a proposed rule issued by CPSC in 2014 (see 1412300018), the commission said. CPSC “expects that the rule will have a minimal impact on manufacturers,” the agency said. The expanded ban on DINP only affects “a relatively small percentage of children’s toys that cannot be placed in a child’s mouth,” while the four additional phthalates banned by the final rule (DIBP, DPENP, DHEXP, and DCHP) “are not widely used in children’s toys and child care articles,” so “few manufacturers will need to reformulate products to comply with this aspect of the rule.”

Under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, a “children’s toy” is “a consumer product designed or intended by the manufacturer for a child 12 years of age or younger for use by the child when the child plays.” A “child care article” is “a consumer product designed or intended by the manufacturer to facilitate sleep or the feeding of children age 3 and younger, or to help such children with sucking or teething.” A “toy can be place in a child’s mouth if any part of the toy can actually be brought to the mouth and kept in the mouth by a child so that it can be sucked and chewed. If the children’s product can only be licked, it is not regarded as able to be placed in the mouth. If a toy or part of a toy in one dimension is smaller than 5 centimeters, it can be placed in the mouth.”

(Federal Register 10/27/17)