CPSC and small batch toy manufacture
2011-12-30 12:29:22.579+00 by
Dan Lyke
2 comments
Linked because on my list of hobby things to do is build wooden toys for various charitable causes: CPSC Launches Registry for Small Batch Children’s Product Manufacturers, which allows you to bypass some testing for lead and other heavy metals in toys when you know all the products you're putting in to the toy are safe, and when you have revenues of less than a million dollars and have made less than 7,500 units in the prior year.
More details at US Consumer Product Safety Commission — Small Batch Manufacturers and Third Party Testing. The registration page is at http://www.saferproducts.gov/
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Children and growing up Bay Area Consumerism and advertising
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comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2011-12-30 19:45:00.177193+00 by:
Jim S
Are you sure? The 2nd link in your post says "Small batch manufacturers will ALWAYS be required to third
party test for compliance with certain children's product safety rules (listed in group A, on the right hand
side of this page)." The first item of list A is lead paint testing. The rest of the list is toddler and baby
related laws, mostly for choking, strangling, and suffocating.
I'm not familiar with the test, it could be as simple as a "swab and mail", but I'm guessing it involves more
expensive labs.
#Comment Re: made: 2012-01-01 00:36:48.155708+00 by:
Dan Lyke
Hmmm... I think you're correct. I was thinking that wood toys could be bypassed because the finishes weren't necessarily paint, but 16 CFR §1303 says:
Paint and other similar surface-coating materials means a fluid, semi-fluid, or other material, with or without a suspension of finely divided coloring matter, which changes to a solid film when a thin layer is applied to a metal, wood, stone, paper, leather, cloth, plastic, or other surface. This term does not include printing inks or those materials which actually become a part of the substrate, such as the pigment in a plastic article, or those materials which are actually bonded to the substrate, such as by electroplating or ceramic glazing.
I need to dig further into how this applies to various wood finishes.