In Hong Kong, testing times for toy makers

Hong Kong — Rogue toymakers, test-happy executives, countries disagreeing about what a reasonable risk for kids is and, oh yes, yet another casualty of the U.S. government shutdown.

Just a typical day in the life of a toy safety executive.

Chinese toy makers packed a conference at the Hong Kong Toys & Games Fair, held Jan. 7-10, to learn about present and future U.S. and European Union toy safety regulations.

In recent years, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has sent an official to this annual fair to update manufacturers on CPSC rules and regulations. This time, though, the agency's scheduled appearance at the packed event was canceled due to the government shutdown.

Chemicals in plastic toys are an especially fraught topic, said Alan Kaufman, senior vice president of technical affairs at the New York-based trade group The Toy Association.

"Everyone can understand a sharp edge or a sharp point, however, when it comes to chemical risks, some of these names are very scary sounding ... [parents] just simply don't want them there," Kaufman said."We definitely have a bull's-eye on our backs."

Catherine Van Reeth, director general of the trade group Toy Industries of Europe, said the latest EU directives sharply reduce the amount of lead and bisphenol A in toys intended for children age 3 or younger.

Kaufman discussed the latest updates to ASTM F963, the safety standard for all toys sold in the United States. ASTM F963-19 is slated to be published by the end of March, but that might be another casualty of the government shutdown, as CPSC staff are unavailable, Kaufman said.

Both Kaufman and Van Reeth believe the current regulatory regime is working well. Recalls indicate a well-functioning system, especially when one is initiated voluntarily by the manufacturer or retailer, Kaufman said.

Toys are "an easy place for regulators to demonstrate that they're doing their job," Kaufman said.

Toys are invariably at or near the top of lists of unsafe products, said Van Reeth. "Whenever we are asked about that — because of course we do get asked — we say that that's really good news. Because that means that the system works," she said.

The vast majority of unsafe toys are made by "cowboys" not affiliated with TIE, Van Reeth said. "They're made by people that no one in our organization has ever heard of," she said.

"We need smart market surveillance," Van Reeth said.

While exhibitor booths at the fair, one of the world's largest toy shows, frequently noted the health and safety certifications those companies had, privately, executives groused about the high cost of testing and re-testing for different countries.

But toy makers dreaming of worldwide standards quickly discover that attitudes about acceptable risk vary from country to country or, in the U.S. market, from state to state.

"There's no consensus within the world of what makes something unreasonable," David Kosnoff, vice president of quality assurance at Hasbro Far East Ltd. in Hong Kong, said. "Even between North America and Europe, there are some significant differences in how those are viewed."

Toy makers need to spend time up front reviewing a design, looking for possible flaws and making sure the product can be manufactured consistently, Kaufman said.

"There has been a practice in the past in the toy industry: one pass can override 10 fails or more, even if there's been no change in design or material or process," Kosnoff said."As manufacturers and brands and labs, if we get a fail, we ought to be asking Why? What happened?"

Safety and environmental concerns can conflict, Van Reeth said.

Often, safety means a child can't easily take apart a toy. But that poses a problem when a toy at the end of its product life cycle needs to be disassembled and its components placed in different waste streams, Van Reeth said.

In the future, EU toy makers will probably be expected to shoulder the cost of recycling, Van Reeth said.