ISO 8124 Safety of Toys

Toys are definitely fun and educational tools, but some toys can be dangerous. Toys, whether they are building blocks, mechanical or children's creativity, must be reliable. Many children are injured each year by toys. In 2016, around 15 thousand children under the age of 175 were brought to emergency services due to toy-related injuries. This means about 500 children every day. Almost half of these injury incidents are in children aged 5 and under.

In recent years, with the increasing number of toy recalls from the market, there has been a greater focus on the quality and safety of toys on a global scale. Essentially, most of the world's toy production is produced in China (China produces almost 70 percent of the world's toys). In this regard, the toy industry is very intertwined internationally and concerns about safe children's products are universal. Therefore, especially in developed countries, both the legal regulations for national security have been strengthened and the interest shown to comply with a set of international standards has increased.

For this purpose, the ISO 8124 series of standards has been developed by the International Standards Organization (ISO). These standards aim to minimize potential hazards associated with toys and provide comprehensive testing methods for toy products. While preparing the ISO 8124 series of standards, the following two standards were taken:

• Set of standards for toy safety, EN 71, a European standard
• ASTM F963-17 Standard consumer safety specification for toy safety developed by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)

These standards address the potential hazards encountered in the case of acceptable foreseeable abuse in the normal use for which a toy is intended. In addition, these standards do not cover product performance or quality other than safety.

The ISO 8124 standard also covers toys and materials designed to be played by children under the age of 14. The requirements of this standard include acceptable criteria for the structural features of toys such as shape, dimensions, small parts, sharp points and edges, and hinge openings.

The sections that make up the ISO 8124 standard are as follows:

• Part 1: 2018: Safety considerations related to mechanical and physical properties. This standard covers, with few exceptions, all toys for children 14 and under and focuses on the physical and mechanical aspects of the various components of a toy.
• Chapter 2: 2014: Flammability. This standard deals with the ignition potential of all toys under a very small ignition source. It focuses on soft-padded toys with a textile surface or that children wear or tuck into.
• Part 3: 2010: Transport of specific items. The chemical composition of toys is subject to further scrutiny, as traditional production materials appear to be dangerous for children's health. This standard specifies acceptable threshold levels and sampling and extraction methods for the migration of antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, and selenium.
• Section 4: 2014: Swings, slides and similar activity toys for domestic and non-family use. This standard is for activity toys such as swings, slides, climbing frames and toy pools.
• Part 5: 2015: Determining the total concentration of certain elements in toys. This standard is about the transportation of certain items. A method is given to determine the total concentration of the elements specified in the ISO 8124-3 standard.
• Chapter 6: 2014: Certain phthalate esters in toys and children's products. In recent years, research has focused on the possible harm of commonly used plastic softeners. Phthalate residue when ingested or absorbed by the body causes long-term developmental disorders such as impaired hormonal development and reproductive disorders. This standard provides a test method for the assessment of conformity to established limits.
• Part 7: 2015: Requirements and test methods for finger paints. Substances such as colorants, moisturizers, binders and preservatives that help delay drying are addressed in this standard, along with specific packaging and labeling requirements. This standard applies especially to finger paints, it does not include paints used for face or body.
• Section 8: 2016: Age determination rules. This standard provides a reliable guide for providing information about the age at which children start playing with certain toys.

Generally speaking, the ISO 8124 set of standards allows for a variety of national inputs to reduce test redundancies, close toy safety test gaps, and improve existing standards. Mainly, a significant amount of toy recall incidents are due not to initial design defects, but to problems arising during production and often first batch testing. This set of standards for toy safety helps make communication between toy companies and manufacturing facilities more transparent. Toy companies no longer have to worry about production distortions that could put children's safety at risk.

The test methods applied in our laboratories comply with all national and international specifications and prevent products from getting stuck in possible legal regulatory gaps.

Our organization provides testing services within the scope of ISO 8124 Toy safety standard to the requesting organizations, within the framework of national and international standards, with its trained and expert staff and advanced technological equipment, among numerous testing, measurement, analysis and evaluation studies.