Controls, the order of the day

The legislation and controls that it infers to prevent toxic components present in the coatings of toys from reaching the digestive tract of children are increasingly frequent and harsh in Latin America.

For example, in Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) there is a regulation that obliges toy manufacturers to certify compliance with safety standards with regard to paints, coatings and materials in general. This regulation limits the migration of heavy metals, as specified in the NM 300-3 standard of 2002.

"In general there are two currents, those that follow the North American standards and those that are oriented by the European ones. Mercosur is taking the concept of the European standard (EN 71-3 of 1998), although other countries are with the American one. At the moment there are some differences such as that the American standard is raised more from the requirements that the toy has to meet, and not so much in the methods to examine it. The European standard takes the other concept, indicates what methods it has to use for the examination and approval of the toy," said Pablo Keimel, head of laboratory of Lenor SRL, one of the most recognized entities in Argentina in terms of accreditation and control.

In this same sense, Roberto Luis Raimondi, technical director of the laboratory of the Argentine Chamber of the Toy Industry, pronounced: "in the Mercosur area there is a regulation that establishes that to market toys, they must comply with some essential safety conditions, within these conditions there is one that refers to the content of the coating materials, fundamentally the paintings," he said.

As far as this issue is concerned, there is a process for determining the migration of heavy metals into the organism. There the maximum limit of each of the heavy metals that must migrate to the body is established; in the case of paints they are present in the pigments that ultimately give it the color.

Returning to what is the legislation for this area of the continent, the representative of the Lenor SRL laboratory explained that "this will be changing mainly due to the demobilization of the two main world standards and the recent imposition of mandatory requirements in the United States of the examination of toys. That is, less than a year ago it was imposed as an obligation to carry out the tests for the approval of toys, both for those that are manufactured and for those that enter the country. "

This determination, as Keimel acknowledges, was largely due to the two facts that were so resonant with respect to some of the toys of the Mattel company, one with the paints and the other with the magnets.

Recall that the American manufacturer Mattel recalled in 2007 millions of toys, many of them made in China, for containing toxic substances such as lead in its paints and some dangerous magnets.

For now, in what has to do with Mercosur, an upcoming revision of the rules is estimated, since more than six years have passed since their issuance, "they are currently in the process of reviewing the toy standards, which in the scope of Mercosur is the NM 300 and has several parts (from the NM 300 -1 to NM 300 – 6), occupying different aspects of the measurement. Eventually the one that deals with toxic compounds in toys is the NM 300 – 3 standard, which talks about the migration of certain elements, specifically deals with eight elements, which are all heavy metals and some others, "said the head of laboratory of Lenor SRL.

The rules of the toy indicate, regarding these migrations, that as they are all inorganic elements can be absorbed by the stomach. Therefore, the study procedure proposed in the standard is a method simulating in an acidic medium the process that arises in the digestive system.

In short, what is sought with this mechanism is to attract heavy metals, it is assumed that in those conditions some percentage of the metal will pass to the test solution. This proves and demonstrates whether or not there is any presence of antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury or selenium, elements whose conservation is required.

Toxicity of coatings
As for the elements, their level of toxicity and the presence of these in the coatings of the toys, as established by the technical director of the laboratory of the Argentine Chamber of the Toy Industry, "it is difficult to specify which are the most toxic elements, what is sought is that the pigments do not migrate toxic elements and that they are within the levels allowed by the toxicity measurement table. We have been able to establish, according to the tests we have carried out, that there are paintings that meet the standards without any difficulty; on the other hand there are others that give values outside the table. But ultimately this corresponds to the technological development of each bidder in terms of the product it puts on the market, "he said.

For his part, our guest of Lenor SRL stated that "certain plastic or wooden toys that are painted on their surface sometimes have contents of these prohibited metals, that is, it may be that the manufacturer uses when coloring the mass of the plastic certain pigments that have heavy metals, but the plastic retains them, then they are not dangerous. Regardless of that, when they paint it on the surface, depending on the type of coloration they use, that is, the composition of the pigment, it will generate this toxicity."

This, as Keimel acknowledges, "is very often seen in plastic dolls in which the manufacturer injects the piece in a certain color and then paints the face, features or clothes of another color, and happens more often with yellow dyes, and those that have this color in their composition. In these we usually find high contents of lead and chromium, "he says.

Certification process
In order for a toy to be placed in the Latin American market and especially in the Mercosur market, it must first pass strict controls "the tests are determined by type of toy. With regard to toxicity specifically, it is necessary to examine all the components that are different, that is, if there are several colored components all have to be examined. Then the result of the test is issued and the procedure for the import certificate or placing on the market is continued."

To market any toy, the producing companies are obliged to comply with the entire certification and satisfactorily pass the tests, if any of these is not met, then the certification process is suspended until the reason why it was not fulfilled is exceeded.

This is evidenced by Raimondi when indicating that "within the process that we analyze a high percentage of products that are subjected to the controls comply with the regulations, to a lesser extent, there are others that do not comply, but due to their activity they almost always seek to amend that non-compliance". In the same way, the representative of the CAlJ mentions that "we at the Mercosur level have a regulation and every toy manufacturer before marketing, whether it is a product made here in Mercosur or brought from outside the zone, has to go through the certification procedure and once approved can market, that is, it has to be within the rule imposed by law.

Meanwhile, Keimel stresses that "in the tests that we are constantly carrying out we have a wide quality sampling of the toys that are sold at least in Argentina, given that it is 90% of our market, so in general there are few times that the non-compliance with the results of the tests is presented".

What is clear is that in the area there is no control as such for paint manufacturers, and it is up to each toy producer to look for a supplier that satisfies all the requirements of the law, as Roberto Luis Raimondi makes evident: "world trade is based on high standards, but also countries such as Chile, Venezuela, Mexico and the United States have this regulation, perhaps in these last two it is added that all paint in composition should not superimpose a certain value in lead content, but all the countries of the region practically have the same limits or restrictions, either by conviction or regulation of each country ".

BOX
Toy segment, unexplored
One of the main barriers faced by toy manufacturers is the lack of suppliers specialized in the paint strip, a situation that forces most companies to resort to coatings that do not have as their origin to fulfill this function and, therefore, most of the time they do not manage to overcome the controls that are aimed at finding toxic elements in their composition.

From the same destination of the pigments for the elaboration of the paints and coatings, as recognized by Roberto Ramírez, manager of the Merck company, there are failures because there is no clarity of the destination that they will have, much less of the regulations that must be overcome.

But most of the time this problem, as suggested by Roberto Raimondi of the Argentine Chamber of the Toy Industry, "is carried by the toymakers themselves, first because they do not refer to paints specified for this purpose and, on the other hand, because they do not create the need in their suppliers to develop a specialized line that complies with the standards that seek to prevent toxic elements from reaching the human organism through paints. or coatings used in toys."