Panels & Furniture Asia March/April 2024

FURNITURE MANUFACTURING
Hidden dangers:
The stability of
clothing storage units
Since 1 Sep 2023, the US has updated its
regulations for the stability of clothing storage
units (CSUs) to protect children from the
tip-over of furniture. How and why did the
US come to this decision?
Over the last few months, the furniture
sector had to deal with a topic that
has generated a bit of concern: the
stability of CSUs and the legislative
requirements that have recently been
introduced in the US market. Such
measures refer specifically to the
stability of certain furniture products
that are considered to be one of the
most frequent causes of accidents in
the living space.
BACKGROUND
According to figures reported by the
US Federal Register, in the period
between January 2000-April 2022,
the US had more than 230 fatal home
accidents directly or indirectly caused
by overturning of CSUs occurred. 1 Of
these, nearly 200 involved children. To
the above-mentioned figures, many
other accidents should be added, of
which were less serious nature but
always involved children in the vast
majority of cases, reaching over 70%.
These numbers are considered
unacceptable by the US government
authorities, who therefore started a
legislative path to ensure the safety
of furniture by eliminating, or at least
reducing, causes that led to its tipping
over in domestic environments.
The investigation was coordinated
by the Consumer Product Safety
Commission (CPSC), the US federal
agency in charge of consumer product
safety, which also undertook analyses
to assess the evidence of potential
hazards caused by or related to the use of
different products. This investigation also
included the publication of mandatory
technical standards, information and
education of both manufacturers and end
consumers, as well as other activities
such as the possible recall of noncompliant
products from the market.
The CPSC therefore began by considering
the US technical standard in legislative
force, which is the ASTM F2057-19.
According to ASTM International, the
F2057-19 safety specification, published
back in 2019, aimed to “reduce injuries
and deaths of children from hazards
associated with tipover of clothing
storage units”. The specification covered
chests, drawer chests, chests of drawers,
dressers, and bureaus only. 2
According to CATAS, the CPSC also
considered the general worldwide
standardisation landscape on this issue,
other than the US standards, including an
analysis of other documents such as the
European standard EN 14749, the ISO 7171
standard, as well as a similar Australian
standard. However, at the end, the CPSC
found none of the standards examined
were considered adequate to prevent the
incidents that have been occurring in the
US market.
ACTION TAKEN
After this initial analysis, the CPSC
therefore determined it was necessary
to adopt a new test method to meet the
safety requirements expressed by the US
government authorities.
In 2022, the ‘Final Rule 16 CFR 1261’ was
published in the US Federal Register,
which contained guidance on the safety
standards to be considered mandatory
for furniture and furnishings that fall
under the CSU definition.
The aim of the provision was to eliminate,
or at least to reduce, the risks of
furniture tipping over by complying with
certain requirements that can be verified
44 PANELS & FURNITURE ASIA | MARCH / APRIL 2024