Toy Association Monitors Revision Process for F963 Toy Standard

March 28, 2023 | The ASTM International F15.22 Subcommittee on Toy Safety is finalizing an update to the F963 Standard for Toy Safety as part of the standard’s required five-year revision process.

The multi-stakeholder subcommittee, chaired by Joan Lawrence, The Toy Association’s senior vice president of standards & regulatory affairs, is charged with overseeing the consensus standard to ensure that it keeps pace with product innovation and the latest intel on child behavior and risk.

ASTM is circulating at least one new ballot this week for committee members to vote on additional proposed changes to the requirements for phthalates. Keeping with the ASTM consensus standards process, additional work (and possible follow-up ballots) will be needed to resolve negatives and comments related to proposals for toy substrate materials, battery accessibility, and labeling of certain stroller and carriage toys, each of which has unresolved comments. Of the five balloted sections in the most recent voting, only the ballot on acoustics/sound level of toys has been approved as balloted and joins six other previously approved proposals.

Association members who sit on the ASTM Toy Safety Subcommittee and/or the ASTM Committee on Consumer Products are urged to look for ballot notifications and a meeting notice within the coming days. The subcommittee will meet again when the new voting period closes to discuss comments received in response to the new ballots.

Once these remaining items are resolved, a revised ASTM F963 toy safety standard could likely be published by early summer and would include all approved revisions since the 2017 edition of the standard was published. The Toy Association will plan a webinar to advise members on the anticipated revisions once the approvals are complete.

The subcommittee is also discussing several proposed new areas of work for a possible future revision of the toy safety standard. These items include aquatic toys, battery accessibility requirements for toys, ride-on toys that resemble all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), and expandable water and gel bead toys. Additionally, two areas also under the F15 Subcommittee purview and set for their periodic review are the standards for nitrosamines in pacifier nipples and for tricycles, which will be revised and adopted as an ASTM standard. Technical working groups have been formed to consider each of these topics and additional experts were invited to volunteer to participate in this work.

The Toy Association will continue to keep its members apprised of activity related to potential changes in the relevant safety standards for toys. Any questions on these efforts may be directed to Joan Lawrence, senior vice president of standards at The Toy Association and chair of the ASTM Subcommittee on Toy Safety.

ASTM meetings are open to all; for more information, visit ASTM.org.