Ensuring Toy Safety: Testing and Certification Guidelines

                                                                                                                                                                                       

From the smallest plastic building block to a model railway – the safety of children's toys is a top priority for parents and others concerned. The European Toy Safety Directive (2009/48/EC) applies to products that are designed or intended for use in play by children under 14 years of age. The Directive lays down safety criteria, such as mechanical properties, chemical properties, flammability and more. Also, it sets out documentation and labeling requirements. However, like the other European CE-marking directives, the detailed technical safety requirements for covered product are specified in harmonized European standards, such as the EN 71 series.

In USA, similar requirements and procedures for ensuring the safety of toys are under control of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

After acquisition of Norlab in Norway, Nemko has now significant capabilities for both chemical and mechanical testing, which combined with the long-standing high expertise in testing of electrical safety, EMC, radio parameters etc, give an ideal basis for offering testing and certification of toys.

So, Nemko in Norway was recently accredited as both testing lab and certification body for toys by Norwegian
Accreditation (a member of the international accreditation associations ILAC and IAF).
On this basis, one has already been authorized as Notified Body for toys in Europe and likewise been accepted by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for testing of toys. Application to be authorized as GSO
Notified Body for the Arabic Gulf Area is in process, and more national acceptances will follow.

The standards presently covered by the accreditations are:
EN 71-1:2014+A1:2018 (Mechanical and physical properties), EN 71-2:2020 (Flammability)
EN 71-3: 2019 (Chemical)
EN IEC 62115:2020 (Electric toys safety)
ASTM F963-17 (Toy safety)

For further information, please contact Kenny.Ho@nemko.com

(Article is based on text provided by Kenny Ho, edited by T.Sollie)