The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a statement of policy regarding the testing and certification of children’s products for compliance with the lead content limits established in the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. The document, which is available at http://www.cpsc.gov/about/cpsia/leadpolicy.pdf, addresses several key unresolved issues related to component testing that had been raised in recent months by U.S. importers.

Effective from 14 August 2009, the CPSIA bans any product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger if it contains more than 300 parts per million total lead content by weight for any part of the product. A lead content limit of 100 ppm for children’s products is scheduled to enter into force on 14 August 2011 unless the CPSC determines that this standard is not feasible for a product or product category. The CPSIA includes a separate provision that limits the lead content for surface paint in furniture, toys and other children’s products to a maximum of 90 ppm lead by weight of the total non-volatile content of the paint or the weight of the dried paint film. The CPSC is also required to revise this limit downward every five years if it determines that it is technologically feasible to do so.

The CPSC determined in August 2009 that certain products or materials inherently do not contain lead or contain lead at levels that do not exceed the CPSIA lead content limits. These products and materials are listed below.

1.  Diamond, ruby, sapphire and emerald.

2.  Semi-precious gemstones and other minerals, provided the mineral or material is not based on lead or lead compounds and is not associated in nature with any mineral based on lead or lead compounds (minerals that contain lead or are associated in nature with minerals that contain lead include, but are not limited to, aragonite, bayldonite, boleite, cerussite, crocoite, galena, linarite, mimetite, phosgenite, vanadinite and wulfenite).

3.  Natural or cultured pearls.

4.  Wood (any paint on wood needs to be tested and certified).

5.  Paper and similar materials made from wood or other cellulosic fibre, including but not limited to paperboard, linerboard and medium, and coatings on such paper that soak into the paper and cannot be scraped off the surface.

6.  CMYK process printing inks (excluding spot colours, other inks that are not used in CMYK process, and inks that can be scraped off the surface on which they are used or used in after-treatment applications, including screen prints, transfers, decals or other prints).

7.  Textiles (excluding after-treatment applications, e.g., screen prints, transfers, decals or other prints) consisting of:

• Natural fibres (dyed or undyed), including but not limited to cotton, kapok, flax, linen, jute, ramie, hemp, kenaf, bamboo, coir, sisal, silk, wool (sheep), alpaca, llama, goat (mohair, cashmere), rabbit (angora), camel, horse, yak, vicuna, qiviut and guanaco.
• Manufactured fibres (dyed or undyed), including but not limited to rayon, azlon, lyocell, acetate, triacetate, rubber, polyester, olefin, nylon, acrylic, modacrylic, aramid and spandex.

8.  Other plant-derived and animal-derived materials, including but not limited to animal glue, bee’s wax, seeds, nut shells, flowers, bone, sea shell, coral, amber, feathers, fur and untreated leather.

9.  Surgical steel and other stainless steel within the designations of Unified Numbering System, UNS S13800 – S66286, not including the stainless steel designated as 303Pb (UNS S30360), provided that no lead or lead-containing metal is intentionally added (the non-steel or non-precious metal components of a product, such as solder or base metals in electroplate, clad or fill applications must be tested and certified).

10.  Gold (at least 10 karat), sterling silver (at least 925/1000), platinum, palladium, rhodium, osmium, iridium, ruthenium and titanium.

These products and materials do not need to be tested and certified for compliance with the CPSIA lead content limits. For example, cotton blankets or t-shirts without buttons or appliqués do not need to be tested by a third party laboratory for lead content, nor would a lab need to test the cotton blanket or t-shirt to show that it is actually made out of cotton. The CPSC notes that some retailers may want manufacturers and importers to test and certify their products but those tests and certificates are not required by the CPSC for the materials or products in the above list.

As to the issue of whether products that include both materials/component parts that do not need to be tested for lead and materials/component parts that do need to be tested for lead (e.g., trousers with fabric components and a zipper), the CPSC will not currently require separate tests of the parts of the product that are made entirely of items that have been determined not to exceed the lead limits. In addition, the CPSC will not require testing for lead content of those parts of a children’s product that are inaccessible (i.e., parts that cannot be touched by a small child’s finger) nor will it require testing of certain components of children’s electronic devices.

The CPSC gives the example of a children’s coat, size 6x, made of a variety of fabrics and a zipper to illustrate its current policy on products containing numerous materials and/or component parts. In this particular case, the fabric does not need to be tested for lead content because textiles are on the list of materials and products determined to be naturally below the 300 ppm lead content limit. However, the lead content of any plastic, metal or painted parts of the zipper would need to be tested to verify that they do not exceed the applicable lead limits. A zipper may consist of several parts including the zipper teeth, which come as one part on a ribbon. The CPSC confirms that only the teeth need to be tested for their lead content and not the ribbon. Any other part of the zipper (e.g., the zipper pull) would also need to be tested for lead content and, if painted, for compliance with the separate lead in paint limit. A certificate would need to be generated for the coat, certifying compliance of the zipper on that coat to the total lead content limit of 300 ppm and the lead in paint limit of 90 ppm.

Similarly, a book made with a cardboard cover glued to pages made with paper and printed with CMYK process printing inks does not need to be tested for lead content and no certificate is required. The paper, cardboard and CMYK ink are all on the list of materials and products that the CPSC has determined not to contain lead above the 100 ppm limit, and the glue used for binding is inaccessible. If, however, the book was bound with metal spiral binding rather than inaccessible glue, that binding would need to be tested by a third party for compliance with the 300 ppm lead content limit and the product would need to be certified. If the metal spiral binding was painted, the paint also would need to be tested to assure that it complies with the 90 ppm lead in paint limit and certified as complying with that standard as well.

The CPSC notes that it intends to address component part testing and establish protocols and standards for testing in an upcoming rulemaking. In that rule the CPSC will clarify such topics as how often tests need to be conducted, whether a manufacturer can rely on tests performed by a supplier and what records need to be kept. Until then, the CPSC will, on an interim basis, accept certifications of component parts if the component tested is the same in all material respects as the component used on the product.