Updated News: North America

US CPSC Votes for Proposed Rule Making to Exempt Certain Plastics from Phthalates Testing.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a proposed rulemaking on August 17, 2016: Prohibition of Children’s Toys and Child Care Articles Containing Specified Phthalates: Determinations Regarding Certain Plastics.

In an effort to reduce the cost of third party testing requirements consistent with assuring product compliance, the CPSC issued a draft notice of proposed rulemaking for determinations that certain plastics with specified additives would not contain phthalates that are prohibited in children’s toys and childcare articles. Upon approval, a draft rule will be published in the Federal Register and a public comment period will be open for 75 days.

Under the proposed rule, companies that manufacture or import children’s toys or childcare articles that contain accessible polyethylene, polypropylene, high impact polystyrene, or acrylonitrile butadiene styrene will not be required to third party test to assure compliance with Section 108 of the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). However, compliance with the 0.1% limit for the currently six prohibited phthalates is still required.

What is the definition of Quality Assurance (QA)?

The maintenance of a desired level of quality in a product, especially by means of attention to every stage of the process.  A procedure or set of procedures intended to ensure that a product (before work is complete, as opposed to afterwards) meets specified requirements.

QA is a way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when delivering solutions or services to customers. QA is applied to physical products in pre-production to verify what will be made meets specifications and requirements, and during manufacturing production runs by validating lot samples meet specified quality controls.

Quality Assurance refers to administrative and procedural activities implemented in a quality system so that requirements and goals for a product or activity will be fulfilled.   It is the systematic measurement, comparison with a standard, monitoring of processes and an associated feedback loop that confers error prevention. 

Two principles included in Quality Assurance are: “Fit for purpose", the product should be suitable for the intended purpose; and "Right first time", mistakes should be eliminated. QA includes management of the quality of raw materials, assemblies, products and components, services related to production, and management, production and inspection processes.

CPTS

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We want to extend our help by giving the most to our views. That's why we need your help with submitting your safety questions. 

We will choose the top 3 questions of week and post answers on our next blog.

You can submit your questions by emailing QualityAssurance@CPTSol.com. Any and all questions are welcomed.

CPTS Team