Germany wishes to retain its existing and stricter national limits for substances that may be released from toys for five heavy metals, namely antimony, arsenic, barium, lead and mercury, in addition to nitrosamines and nitrosatable substances after July 21, 2013, when the chemical limits under ANNEX II, Part III, the Toy Safety Directive come into force. For this reason Germany applied for an exception to continue using its existing limits in January 2011.

In response, the Commission’s Decision 2012/160/EU of March 1, 2012 was published in the Official Journal of the European Union (eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:080:FULL:EN:PDF) on March 20, 2012. This Decision does not approve the continuance of limits for antimony, arsenic and mercury, but has approved application of the stricter limits for the other substances requested. These measures for barium and lead apply until the date of entry into force of new EU provisions that set revised limits or July 21, 2013, whichever comes first. The measures for nitrosamines and nitrosatable substances were approved beyond the entry into force of chemicals (July 21, 2013).

The respective German national legislation referred to are the second toy safety ordinance (2.GPSGV) and the consumer goods ordinance (BedGgstV) (www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bedggstv/index.html). For example, these specifically rule that toys made of natural or synthetic rubber must not exceed 0.01 mg/kg of releasable nitrosamines and not exceed 0.1 mg/kg of releasable nitrosatable substances.

About SGS Toy Safety Services

Thanks to its global network of laboratories, SGS offers a range of services worldwide that includes consultancy on product safety aspects and the analytical testing (www.sgs.com/en/Consumer-Goods-Retail/Toys-and-Juvenile-Pr...) of heavy metals, nitrosamines, nitrosatable substances and other substances restricted under the toy and chemical safety regulations for the EU, the USA and other international markets.

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Contact details:

SGS Consumer Testing Services
Hingwo Tsang
Senior Technical Manager Chemical Laboratory
SGS Hong Kong Ltd.
5-8/F, 28/F, Metropole Square, 2 On Yiu Street, Siu Lek Yuen
Shatin, NT, Hong Kong, China

t.: +852 2774 7420
Email: cts.media@sgs.com
Website: www.sgs.com/pages/consumer-testing/sgs-consumer-goods-and...

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