BS EN 71   SAFETY OF TOYS

British Standard EN 71 comprises 11 sections which regulate the Safety of Toys. In the absence of other legislation specific to certain products such as jewellery, this standard is also applied by other sectors to ensure that products comply with the General Product Safety regulations.

BS EN 71-3: 1995

Safety of Toys

Specification of Migration of Certain Elements

The Laboratory at The Birmingham Assay Office carries out tests to determine compliance with BS EN 71-3: 1995. This Standard restricts the amount of an element which can be released (as opposed to its content).  This measure is referred to as the migration rate, or the  leachable  level. The standard places restrictions on the migration rate of eight toxic elements; Arsenic, Mercury, Selenium, Chromium, Antimony, Cadmium, Lead  and Barium.

The reason for analysing all of these potentially toxic elements in one standard is to allow for the situation one restricted element being substituted with another.  For example legislation in the USA which limits the use of lead in children’s jewellery has resulted in many instances of  lead being substituted with cadmium which is more toxic than lead but cheaper.

Items tested to EN 71-3:1995 are considered safeif the leachable level of each element is found to be below the safe limit shown in the table below. Each item will normally be tested by component and the migration rate for each component reported in milligrams per kilogram.