On August 20, 2021, the National Consumer Product Safety Standardization Technical Committee (SAC/TC 508) issued a recommended national standard - Guidelines for the Development of Chemical Substances Limit in Consumer Goods (Call for comments) (hereinafter referred to as The Standard), calling for public opinions until October 20, 2021.

During the production process of The Standard, SAC/TC 508 studied Chinese as well as foreign laws and regulations on: product quality and safety, risk management and quality level. In addition, the Committee also learned from general practices within the United States, European Union and from members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). They compared and analyzed the relevant standards and guiding documents together with the differences between the planning process of China and other foreign countries. To collect the toxicity, function and other information of chemical substances, The Standard searched and studied information from professional databases including the International Chemical Security Project Database (IPCS), Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) of American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), International Toxicity Estimates for Risk (ITER), and the American Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

The Standard also takes standards such as the General Principles for Risk Assessment of Chemicals (GB/T 34708-2017) and the General Principles for Risk Assessment of Consumer Product Safety (GB/T 22760-2008) into consideration.

The Standard gives a clear definition of consumer products and stipulates the process of developing a chemical substances limit in consumer products (including home appliances, toys, stationery, and household goods). The process is divided into four steps:

    a) Collect chemical substance information: including toxicity, function, product use outlines, who will use the products, and the production and application of the chemical on the industrial chain;

    b) Determine the value of the chemical substance limits for consumer products in accordance with current standards/regulations or risk assessment methods;

    c) Analyze and evaluate the impact on consumers, industries and other aspects with the determined chemical substances limit;

    d) Finalize and set up the limit based on all the analyses above.

This standard will regulate and guide organizations to carry out activities relevant to the development of chemical substance limits in consumer products. BESTAO suggests that manufacturers in relevant industries both review the chemical substances in current related products based on the standard draft and keep up with the standard issuance in order to take compliance actions accordingly.

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