EU calls for more risk assessments for plastic toys
Safety assessments of plastic toys should consider overall risk, taking account of their likely use, rather than just focusing on the toxicity of substances used to make them, the European Union’s (EU) Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks has advised.
Following a request from the European Commission for guidance on framing such assessments under the toys safety directive, the committee has advised taking broad but ad hoc approaches to individual toys.
Under the law, the presence of most carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic (CMR) substances in is strictly limited, and can exceed individual concentration limits only in toy parts normally inaccessible to children or following a positive opinion of another EU committee - the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety.
However, its colleagues in the health and environmental risks committee have now concluded that “a risk-based approach…as opposed to a hazard-based classification limits approach, should be applied.” It added in a detailed response: “This approach…considers different contact scenarios, oral exposure through mouthing and ingestion of the matrix, dermal exposure through direct contact, and inhalation of compounds released in the vapour form and indirectly through dust.”
The committee said such an approach “requires information on concentrations in simulants [mimicking saliva], frequency and duration of exposure, and absorption rate in order to define appropriate exposure levels to be compared with health-based limit values.”
Its assessment was also cautious about the idea of using existing food contact materials-based tests to make such assessments of plastics, which the Commission is considering to save money and time for regulators and industry.
The committee said that such tests could be adapted for toy assessments, but added “food contact material legislation cannot be generally used to assess the risk to children from exposures to CMR in toys…” Instead it said that a “case-by-case adaptation” would be necessary. The same response came regarding the use of food contact material exposure limits for these substances when used in toys, even by using a common adaptation factor in assessments.
This “would need additional scientific knowledge, currently not available,” said the committee. “Therefore, suitable ad hoc migration testing should be developed for toys.”