Children’s Toys Safety Testing and Quality Control Guidance

There are strict guidelines that must be met if you want to import toys from suppliers in China or any other Asian country. The CPSIA regulates these strict guidelines.  仍would like to share what both US and foreign importers must know to ensure CPSIA compliance when importing children’s toys from China and other countries in Asia.

What is the CPSIA?

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) has strict guidelines and regulates several aspects of product production, such as:

All children’s products produced and export to the US market must be compliant with all applicable safety regulations.

• All children’s products must be tested by a CPSC-approved laboratory with some exceptions.
• All children’s products must have a tracking label attached to the product and/or the product packaging.

Children’s toy importers must also have a Children’s Product Certificate for the toys they want to import; this is a certificate that confirms the imported products are in absolute compliance with all applicable regulations. Before the children toys supplier can be issued with a product certificate, they must meet strict standards, like:

• State if the product has been in contact with any foodstuffs.
• They must prove that the stuffing is clean and of good quality.
• All battery-operated toys must meet strict safety standards.
• The product must have had a product risk assessment.
• The product must be fit for use?
• The product must display the correct label and be age-appropriate.
• There must be evidence of what is the packaging is made from, and have details about packaging waste?
• All-electric toys need to meet EMC safety standards
• All products must have the correct certification and safety marks.
• Chemicals: lead/CPSIA, heavy metals, phthalates, RoHS, restricted substances.

The CPSIA is also the regulatory authority for other children’s products such as furniture and baby products such as:

• ATVs
• Baby products
• Children’s Accessories
• Children’s clothing
• Children’s furniture
• Children’s jewelry
• Dolls
• Plastic toys
• Plush toys
• Toy vehicles
• Wooden toys

Generally, these sorts of products are manufactured differently. For instance, they are designed in a different manner and have another function (furniture, for example). Typically, these products are made from other materials as well. What this means in terms of the CPSIA compliance can therefore appear a bit confusing, so quality control companies such as AQI Service are used to ensure that the correct compliance has been adhered to and that all the relevant safety checks have been done. they also ensure that all the right paperwork is in order and that the product has the correct certification documents.

Children’s Toys Production and Supply

Buyers shall have strict policy standards when it comes to the safety of the toys we give our children. AQI Service conducts quality control tests such as:

• Function tests and small checks
• Metal detection tests and bar code scanning
• Children’s toys inspection: seam pulling test
• Children’s toys inspection: stuffing material check
• Physical and mechanical testing

It is very important that all products produced, especially those that are used by babies and children, are put through physical and mechanical testing to determine the physical, mechanical, and metallographic properties of the materials they are made from. The test is done to identify metals and alloys.

AQI Service is to ensure the materials used in the production of children’s toys are up to standard.

Mechanical testing exposes any item’s mechanical properties, which helps the designer develop a safety plan. The quality of a product depends on its durability, how it was made, and the materials used. normally the inspectors use two types of material testing:

• Destructive Testing/ Mechanical Test – In a destructive mechanical test, the materials are tested to determine mechanical properties such as hardness, toughness, strength, robustness, durability, seams, edges, loose parts, and plastic parts.
• Non-destructive testing – This is either a routine check-up or is done at the end of production before being sold.

The non-destructive test is a check of the materials used. These two forms of testing are absolutely vital because they test for product-endurance and product-safety. Both tests look at:

• Tensile strength
• Shear strength
• Hardness (Brinell, Knoop, Rockwell, Shore, Vickers)
• Stress rupture
• Durability and flexibility
• Thermomechanical Fatigue
• Sharp edges
• Charpy test
• Looking for deformities
• Coating bond strength
• Compression
• Gardner impact
• Creep
• Peel testing
• Stress test of flexibility

AQI Service does all this essential testing for you in their accredited laboratory. So if your company doesn’t have the ability to test your products to make sure strict safety guidelines are being followed and that your product is completely compliant with all the regulatory safety standards, then you need to employ the help of either AQI Service or another accredited testing company that is equipped with the latest instruments, technology, and machinery to conduct these thorough inspections on any type of material.

Physical Testing and Durability

The physical qualities of, for example, a teddy bear and a set of bunk beds are completely different, which means there are additional tests that need to be done. Therefore, ASTM standards will apply depending on the product type. Physical testing is conducted under different environmental conditions, for example:

• Weather conditioning
• Stability tests
• Strength tests
• Durability testing

Tensile testing is used to determine how much force a material can withstand before it breaks. It is also used to make sure that the raw materials used in the production of the product are made out of satisfactory materials that have at the very least met the minimum requirements before being used, and if they haven’t, a different supplied for your raw materials must be found. Because ultimately, if inferior raw materials are used, the final product will not meet the correct tensile standards expected, which is not good all-round and leads to a company getting a bad reputation, resulting in poor customer relationships.

The universal testing machine is used to test tensile strength. and it’s usually using a hydraulic cylinder to create the required force. This machine identifies the following properties in a product:

• The overall strength of the product
• The products elasticity
• Ductility – how ‘soft’ or malleable the material is.
• Stiffness
• Malleability – The property of a metal to deform under compression and take on a new shape.
• Modulus Of Resilience – The maximum energy absorbed per unit volume without creating a permanent distortion.
• Modulus Of Toughness – The amount of strain a material can absorb before it fractures.

The testing company will also test a material’s ability to withstand scratches and perform a hardness test to see how the material responds to heat, which is vitally important. If a product needs to undergo a heat treatment test, some strict guidelines must be followed to verify compliance. There are three types of hardness measurement.

• Scratch Hardness
• Indentation Hardness
• Rebound Hardness

There are three tests that can measure a products hardness and susceptibility to indentation these are:

• Brinell Hardness Test (BHN)
• Rockwell Hardness Tests (HRC)
• Vickers Hardness Test (HV)

Goods that must undergo heat treatment testing have properties that are determined by temperature. These are generally called the thermal properties of a material. These properties are linked to the storage and flow of heat within a substance.

• Thermal conductivity: The thermal conductivity of a material is a measure of its ability to conduct heat.
• Thermal expansion: This is when the material appears to change its shape in response to a change in temperature.

Major Testing Standards of Raw Materials

Typically, the vast majority of plastic toys produced globally are made from a few plastic materials such as high- and low-density polyethylene (LDPE, HDPE), polypropylene (PP), polyvinylchloride (PVC), polystyrene (PS, ABS), polycarbonate (PC), and polyester (PET).

All these ingredients are versatile materials used in the manufacturing of toys because plastic is almost indestructible and can be easily cleaned and last for many years. However, that said, some plastic materials can contain harmful chemicals, which make them unsafe and unsuitable for your children’s toys. It is essential, therefore, that all raw materials follow strict guidelines.

Conclusion

There are strict guidelines that must be met if you want to import toys from suppliers in China or any other Asian country. The CPSIA regulates these strict guidelines.

The testing company can help you identify suppliers in China of Children’s toys that are fully regulated and follow strict guidelines. they can save you time and money, and its goal is to offer reliable, impartial, and flexible quality control services to its clients worldwide. they will make sure your suppliers in China know about and are in complete compliance with CPSIA standards. They will also help to get a Children’s Product Certificate for the toys which buyers want to import. This is a certificate that confirms the imported products are in absolute compliance with all applicable regulations. Email AQI Service for any questions if you have.

Related:

• Toys & Recreational Product Inspection in China
• Plush Toys Inspection and Testing
• Dangerous Toys – What you need to know

Author: AQI Service as a professional quality control service company in China specialized in providing a complete range of quality inspection and testing certification services in China & Asia for global importers, buyers, retailers, and sellers.