A new measure signed into law on 7 Feb by Gov. Andrew Cuomo will enact new regulations on chemicals found in children’s products sold in New York state. The Child Safe Products Act creates and maintains lists of dangerous or questionable chemicals and requires manufacturers to report any substances used in their products. By 2023, the state will ban the sale of products that use certain chemicals, including asbestos, and certain flame retardants. The Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for notifying consumers of the presence of dangerous chemicals.

In late May, Toxics Free China and the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation published a report on the safety of plastic toys being sold online, warning of hazardous plasticisers and loopholes in their regulation on e-commerce sites. Most of these plastic novelties lack safety certificates and required information on date and place of manufacture. Of the 12 rubber ducks purchased and analysed for the study, nine contained 123 to 312 times the permitted levels of plasticisers. These items were bought on Taobao, JD and Pinduoduo, three big e-commerce sites.

A joint enforcement project undertaken by the Nordic countries has found hazardous substances in over one-fifth of free promotional items tested. According to the Norwegian Environment Agency, inspectors found restricted substances above the limit mostly in soft plastic gadgets – due to the presence of softeners, like DEHP and SCCPs – as well as in toys, and electrical and electronic products.
The detected items contained either restricted substances in concentrations exceeding limit values or those on the REACH candidate list of SVHCs in concentrations over 0.1%. A final report of the joint enforcement project will be published this month (May 2019).

The European Commission is proposing to restrict formaldehyde in specific toys under Appendix C of Annex II of the Toy Safety Directive. The restriction will apply to six substances found in toys, including polymeric, resin-bonded wood, textile, leather,paperand water-based toy materials.
The European Commission is also proposing to amend point 13 of part III of Annex II of the Toy Safety Directive in regard to aluminium. The draft amendment aims to lower the migration limits for aluminium.
The exact dates for when the restrictions are put in place are not yet confirmed but the final date for comments is February 2019.

Hamleys and Amazon took the Frootiputti slime toy off their shelves after the product failed safety tests for boron, a substance that can impair fertility. The test, by consumer group WHICH?, found the product had four times the EU limit for boron in toys.

In an EU/EEA-wide project of ECHA’s Enforcement Forum, inspectors found hundreds of consumer products with illegal amounts of restricted chemicals. Every fifth toy inspected contained high levels of restricted phthalates.

Ukraine has adopted legislation aimed at harmonising its toy safety regulation with that of the European Union. Cabinet ministers approved the new Technical Regulation on the Safety of Toys in February. It becomes effective on 21 September. The law establishes requirements on the safety of toys and their placement on the market, and defines the obligations of manufacturers, importers and distributors. It replaces the existing regulation, which was approved in 2013 and took into account the EU's 2009 Toy Safety Directive. The EU has subsequently made a number of amendments to its legislation. Ukraine's latest regulation slightly diverges from the EU Directive, in that it applies to products that have been developed or intended for children up to 14 years of age.

European Commission releases its 2017 report on the Rapid Alert System for dangerous products. In 2017, 'toys' was notified as product with the most risk (29%), followed by 'motor vehicles' (20%), and 'clothing, textiles and fashion items' (12%).
The majority of dangerous products notified in the system came from outside the EU. China is the number one country of origin, but the number of alerts remains stable at 53% (1,155) in 2017, same as the year before. The Commission continues to cooperate closely with Chinese authorities, working together to discuss specific cases and implement actions, such as exchange of good practices. Dangerous products of European origin accounted for 413 notifications (26%).

The toy industry has assured consumers that risk from chemicals in secondhand plastic toys is low, following a study in the UK that revealed the presence of hazardous elements. Research carried out at the University of Plymouth tested 200 toys from schools, charity shops and family homes for the presence of: antimony; arsenic; barium; cadmium; chromium; lead; mercury; selenium; and bromine (as a proxy for brominated flame retardants).

US chain store Target has removed two fidget spinner models from sale, after a study from NGO the US Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) study found they contained high levels of lead. The federal legal limit is 100 parts per million (ppm) for lead in children’s products, but fidget spinners are classified by the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) as general use rather than as children’s products. They are only considered toys if labelled age 12 and under.

Trade association Toy Industries of Europe (TIE) welcomed the European Commission's final Opinion on the tolerable intake of aluminium, with regards to adapting the migration limits in toys. The Commission and its Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (Scheer) Opinion recommends a tolerable daily intake of aluminium, including from sources other than toys, of 0.3mg/kg of body weight per day.

An imitation Rubik’s Cube sold in bargain stores in the UK has been found to contain significant amounts of banned flame retardants. Tests conducted by chemical campaign network, IPEN, found that three ‘Magic Cube' toys contained octaBDE, a commercial mixture of hexabromodiphenyl ether and heptabromodiphenyl ether. The Magic Cube toys were bought from three independent shops in London, which have since been shut down. One of their suppliers remains active, but the publication (ENDS) was unable to make contact with them.

China’s National Consumer Product Safety Commission has recently consulted on a draft list of substance restrictions in consumer products. The list combines a number of existing Chinese standards and, where no domestic standard exists, it refers to restrictions based on EU and other foreign legislation. The draft is similar to the consumer restrictions set out in REACH Annex XVII - includes 103 chemicals and proposes limit values for their use in consumer products, such as toys, textiles, coatings, paints, decoration materials and furniture.

Greenpeace is campaigning for a ban on phthalates in toys marketed in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) countries of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. Phthalates is a family of toxic, synthetic, high production volume industrial chemicals used mostly to make plastics softer and more flexible. (Relevant story: NRDC and Scientists Urge CPSC to Finalize Phthalate Bans)

Turkey's customs and trade ministry has amended the recently adopted Regulation on toy safety. The most significant change is a large reduction of the metal content in toys. The Regulation now provides an exemption for nickel used in toys, or their components, made of stainless steel that are intended to conduct an electric current. The amendments also comprise specific limit values for certain substances in toys intended for children under 36 months and in other toys intended to be placed in the mouth.

A study shows that recycled plastics from electrical and electronic goods used in toy manufacturing which contains brominated flame retardants is putting the health of children exposed to them at risk. Brominated flame-retarding chemicals have been associated with lower mental, psychomotor and IQ development, poorer attention spans and decreases in memory and processing speed. In February EU restrict the use of one such substance, DecaBDE, but also allowed exemptions. Meanwhile, the substances may still be found in imported products that have been recycled in countries like China, which means buying something on the market because the company likes the design then they may bring products into the EU that contain substances that are not allowed.

Three NGOs in US have filed a lawsuit to compel the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to finalise a rule banning five phthalates in children’s products. The commission issued a proposed rule in late 2014 to ban five phthalates in children’s toys, at levels greater than 0.1%. They were diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP); di-n-pentyl phthalate (DnPP); di-n-hexyl phthalate (DnHP); dicyclohexyl phthalate (DCHP); and diisononyl phthalate (DINP). The CPSC was required to publish the final rule within 180 days of the CHAP’s report on 14 January 2015. But the lawsuit states that the agency has missed this deadline by almost two years.