The long awaited EN 71-3:2013 has been published in the UK by BSI; supporting the new chemical requirements of the EU Toys Safety Directive, which take effect from 20 July 2013.  The main changes and issues are as follows:

The main changes and issues are as follows:

• Toy materials are now divided into three categories, as follows, based on their type, which determines the extent to which they may be ingested by the child.  (See Table 1 overleaf.)
  - Category I - Dry, brittle, powder-like or pliable materials 
  - Category II - Liquid or sticky materials 
  - Category III - Scraped-off materials
• Testing now includes 19 elements (or rather 17 different elements, with chromium (III) and (VI), along with both tin and organic tin counted twice).
  The original 8 elements are retained (chromium, now being split as the two oxidation states above), along with another 9 different elements.
• Migration limits have been revised, with many reduced (see Table 2 overleaf).
• Barium migration limits have been reduced further from those in the Directive (with another reduction in the lead limits expected in due course).
• The large analytical correction factor applied has been deleted.
  - Under the previous version, only the adjusted analytical result was used to verify compliance.  That is, for a toy material to be deemed non-compliant, the analytical result had to exceed the migration limit by such a considerable margin that it still exceeded the migration limit after subtraction of the analytical correction factor (which was 30 %, 50 % or 60 %, per each element).
• Laboratories now have to determine their measurement uncertainty and use it to interpret whether their analytical result shows compliance with the migration limit.
  - The margin by which the analytical result could now “exceed” the migration limit before its deemed non-compliant will be drastically reduced.  That is, assuming that a lab’s measurement uncertainty is significantly lower than the former 30 % to 60 % analytical correction factor.

Table 1 - Toy Material Categories

Table 2 - Migration Limits