According to Plastic & Rubber Weekly (PWR), the European Union’s (EU) Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks has advised the European Commission that safety assessments of plastic toys should consider overall risk and take account of their likely uses, rather than just focus on the toxicity of substances in the products. The advisory was issued following a request from the commission for guidance on the toys safety directive.
Under current law, the presence of CMR (carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic) substances is limited and can only exceed individual concentration limits in toy parts that are not accessible to children, or if it has a positive opinion by the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety, an EU committee. According to PWR, members of the Committee on Health and Environmental Risks are asking for “a risk-based approach [that]… 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 vapor form and indirectly through dust.”
