Rep. Jackie Speier (Democrat-California) introduced in the House on 29 July legislation (H.R. 5920) to prohibit the sale of products designed or intended to be worn or used by children 12 years of age or younger that contain excessive levels of cadmium, chromium, barium or antimony. The legislation would set maximum content limits of 60 parts per million for antimony, 1,000 ppm for barium, 75 ppm for cadmium and 60 ppm for chromium, effective 90 days from the date of enactment of the legislation. The Consumer Product Safety Commission would be required to establish a measurement standard for these heavy metals based on a units-of-mass-per-area standard that is statistically comparable to the ppm measurement standard currently used.
The primary target of the legislation appears to be children’s jewellery, which has been found to contain cadmium and other heavy metals. However, other children’s products, including bags, accessories, clothing, and eating and drinking utensils, may also potentially be affected by H.R. 5920, especially items containing metallic components or cadmium-based dyes. Up until recently the CPSC focused its heavy metal prevention efforts almost exclusively on lead in children’s products, and the agency only began issuing recalls for excessive cadmium levels this year. The CPSC issued six such recalls during January-July 2010 involving 12 million drinking glasses made in the United States and some 280,000 units of metal jewellery made in mainland China. The CPSC has not issued any recalls on products containing chromium, barium or antimony.
The California-based consumer watchdog group Center for Environmental Health also recently initiated the first-ever legal action under California’s Proposition 65 involving children’s jewellery that was allegedly found to contain cadmium. CEH alleges that four leading U.S. retailers have been selling children’s jewellery that contains hazardous levels of cadmium since at least February 2007. The cadmium was found in metallic jewellery components such as beads, pendants, clasps, posts and other parts.
The ASTM F963 standard for toys that became mandatory on 10 February 2009 includes restrictions on lead, cadmium, antimony, arsenic, barium, chromium, mercury and selenium based on the soluble portion of those materials, but this standard does not apply to children’s jewellery or children’s products other than toys. The ASTM F963 limits for soluble cadmium, antimony and chromium are the same as those included in H.R. 5920, while the limit for barium is 500 ppm.
