China Draft Safety Requirements for Hazardous Chemicals in Consumer Products Awaiting Approval

A public consultation ended on 15^th Apr for the newly drafted national standard “Safety requirements for hazardous chemicals in consumer products” (hereafter as “safety requirements”). This draft stipulates the prosed regulation of 103 classes of substances (draft download) used in consumer products. The following points are the most significant highlights of the safety requirements:
 
1.       Modeled on EU “REACH regulation (EC) NO1907/2006”, the draft “safety requirements” selects consumer-related hazardous chemicals based on the consumer definition in China’s national standard i.e. ” classification of consumer products”. The draft adds additional hazardous chemicals excluded from REACH regulation according to existing consumer standards and technical requirements in China.
2.       “Safety requirements” propose restriction requirements instead of limitation requirement as some chemicals in the draft are banned. The description of quantitative limitation requirement is not qualified. “Safety requirements” adopts domestic restriction requirements if chemicals have been regulated in consumer products standards. For chemicals not regulated in China, it refers to the restriction requirements of foreign standards.
3.       “Safety requirements” involves a wide range of hazardous chemicals sorted by increasing complexity including heavy metal, alkane, alkyl halide, alkene, benzene, PAH ( polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon ), phenol, aldehyde, ether, alcohol, ester and salt, amine, dye and other non-classified chemicals.
4.       Newly added hazardous chemicals and consumer products: the restriction requirements in the standard consistent with related existing consumer standards are the minimum safety requirements which shall be followed by companies. If a new consumer product has similar target users, term of use and use circumstance with a current category, the restriction requirements for hazardous chemicals reference this similar category.
 
A systematic analysis of China consumer products recalls using data from the last 5 years shows that chemical restriction recalls accounted for around 65%. To help improve quality and facilitate export of Chinese consumer products, making a standard for industrial hazardous chemical registration requirements is imperative.