EU – New EN 71-2:2020 Flammability Safety of Toys Published

Vol. 1204 | 16 Dec 2020

EN 71-2:2020, the standard for Flammability Toy Safety, has recently been published by CEN, and National Standards Bodies will publish or endorse this new standard by June 2021.

The revision includes some new definitions:

• Toy disguise costume “costume intended to be worn by children to facilitate imaginative play where the child pretends to be a character”
• Toys intended to be entered by a child “toy constructed from fabric and/or polymer sheets and films that are intended to fully or almost fully enclose a child on all sides”

Key Changes

The primary changes are related to toy disguise costumes. There are now requirements for toy disguise costumes to be tested before and after washing, even if the manufacturer’s instructions state not to wash. In addition, the test method allows the testing of smaller specimens by combining half-sized specimens and narrow materials as well as specifying the testing of fillings and trims etc. The addition of wire mesh to the specimen holder has been introduced to allow the testing of narrow materials.

Much of revised test methodology is based on the British Retail Consortium (BRC) Code of Practice “Flammability safety of children’s dress-up” which was developed by the BRC in conjunction with UK retailers, manufacturers, and test houses, including Intertek.

The informative Annex A.3 clarifies the appropriate test categories which are applicable to different types of toys to be worn on the head, previously these were detailed in an interpretation document PD CEN/TR 15371-1.

A.8 is a new Annex which includes suggestions on design and construction regarding how to reduce the rate of spread of flame in toy disguise costumes, e.g. use of fabrics made of synthetic fibres, use of thicker felts.

A.9 includes flowcharts to aid the selection of test specimens from toy disguise costumes.

Requirements for Manufacturers

Currently EN 71-2:2011+A1:2014 is still the harmonised toy standard under 2009/48/EC for the immediate future. However, manufacturers should start designing toy disguise costumes taking into account that smaller sample specimens will be tested than previously was the case and also consider the guidelines in Annex A.8.

For more information:

Philip Bullock
Philip.bullock@intertek.com