Championing play: be the decision maker who helps children play more

We all want the best for children. It is normal that toys have stricter regulations than many other products. When refining new toy safety rules, remember that toys compliant with current EU regulations already meet exceptionally high safety criteria. For instance, a plastic toy fork has more requirements than a child’s plastic eating fork.

An example: the new Toy Safety Regulation proposes drastic bans on certain elements that are already restricted at safe levels. This means some safe toys could be banned. This affects elements naturally occurring in common raw materials like water, clay, color pigments, and corn. We could face the bizarre situation where corn permitted for food use is banned in toys.

Check, for example, if new rules can be implemented on time. The proposed Toy Safety Regulation ignores the preconditions and the complexities of the process of toy-making and bringing safe products to the market.

If safety rules become unrealistic, reputable, compliant companies could be driven out of the market. This will only benefit rogue traders who already ignore current regulations and would continue to disregard future ones, putting children at greater risk.