Trade body welcomes final EU opinion on aluminium in toys

Change in migration limit will impact pigments used in colouring pencils

4 November 2017


Trade association Toy Industries of Europe (TIE) welcomed the European Commission's final Opinion on the tolerable intake of aluminium, with regards to adapting the migration limits in toys.

The Commission and its Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (Scheer) Opinion recommends a tolerable daily intake of aluminium, including from sources other than toys, of 0.3mg/kg of body weight per day.

TIE director general Catherine Van Reeth told Chemical Watch that the change in migration limit will only impact "a small number of pigments used in colouring pencils." Manufacturers are evaluating whether they can find alternatives that meet the new standards.

The change to the aluminium migration limit was, she said: "a good example of how the toy safety Directive responds effectively to new scientific evidence."

Calculation
The committee calculated the resulting migration limits for aluminium from toys according to the recommended tolerable daily intake and the Scheer Opinion of 2010. This recommended allocating 10% of the tolerable daily intake to toys, as follows:

2,250mg aluminium/kg of dry, brittle, powder-like or pliable toy material;
560mg aluminium/kg of liquid or sticky toy material; and
28,130mg aluminium/kg of scraped-off toy material
A public consultation on a scientific opinion was opened on the website of the non-food scientific committees from 7 July to 10 September 2017.