Are You In Compliance With New Fed Lead Laws?

Signed into law last summer, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) set new federal lead standards for children’s products, including jewelry. On Aug. 14, the limit drops from the current 600 parts per million (ppm), or 0.06 percent, to 300 ppm. For paint or a similar surface coating on children’s jewelry, the standard goes from 600 ppm to 90 ppm on the same date.

Moreover, the CPSIA mandated that jewelry designers and manufacturers must certify through third-party tests that their children’s jewelry meets those standards. The tests must be performed by labs accredited by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and any children’s jewelry without certificates of compliance cannot be imported or distributed in the United States.

The CPSIA pre-empts all state lead laws except California’s Proposition 65, which requires warning labels for products that contain certain chemicals, including lead, known to cause cancer. (California, however, also says that compliance certificates must be available for all jewelry, not just kids’, effectively requiring testing for any jewelry sold in the state . Go to California’s “Lead in Jewelry” web page for more information about the state’s standards for adult jewelry.)

To prepare the following guide for complying with the CPSIA, MJSA reviewed U.S. government actions and statements regarding the CPSIA; and interviewed several industry experts on lead in jewelry. Special thanks to consultants Howard E. Schachter of Aquatronics Industries Inc. in Riverside, Rhode Island; J. Tyler Teague of JETT Research in Johnson City, Tennessee; and James Troiano in Cranston, Rhode Island. The latter two consultants participate in the MJSA Lead Quality Assurance Program.

Via MJSA – click for a Step-by-Step Guide to Compliance….