10 years ago today: our push for safe toys in the European Parliament

Ten years ago, our german office advocated strongly for a complete ban of certain hazardous substances in toys. As a result, the European Parliament revised its EU toys Directive, becoming one of the world’s most ambitious toys directive.

ChemicalWatch writes: “The European Commission has since described the toy safety Directive’s requirements as among the ‘most ambitious worldwide’. Toys must comply with all applicable EU chemical legislation, including REACH, the restriction on heavy metals and compounds; and the compositional and labeling requirements of the EU cosmetic Directive. Nevertheless, the decade-long push for improved toy safety continues. The UK consumer group Which? said in July that children’s ‘slime’ products, sold as toys in online stores, can contain levels of boron compounds exceeding EU safety limits. And the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes) recently flagged that non-EU online stores are selling borax-containing toy slimes without the proper warning labels.”