PAHs in toys and childcare products - Miljøstyrelsen

� TPE-S: Block copolymers based on styrene, butylene, ethylene,
propylene and modifications hereof
� TPE-U: Block copolymers based on polyurethane
� TPE-E: Block copolymers based on polyesters and polyethers
� TPE-A: Block copolymers based on polyamides
� TPE Silicone: Block copolymers based on silicone
� TPE-O: Olefin based thermoplastic elastomers
� TPE-V: Dynamic vulcanisates
� TPE radiation crosslink-able
Thermoplastic elastomers contain a hard, thermoplastic compound and a soft,
elastomeric compound which are physically bound to each other to form the
final elastic polymer.
These alternative polymers do not need to contain extender oil in order to
obtain the right material properties which has been verified by the German
survey (BAuA, 2010), as the study concludes that thermoplastic elastomers
do not contain PAHs. Thermoplastic elastomers can be produced with
different material properties and they are therefore capable of replacing a
range of rubber products. The thermoplastic elastomers have therefore not
been investigated any further in the present study.
2.5 PAH in specific consumer products
It has not been possible to correlate different kind of extender oils and their
PAH content with the different rubber and plastic materials used and neither
to correlate this information to the different toys and childcare articles. The
reason is that there are no precise data on the content of PAHs in the different
extender oils. Further, it has not been possible to correlate the different
extender oils to different rubber and plastic materials. This situation appeared
also for the carbon black products as there are no specifications of these
additive materials or in which products they are used as well as in what
amounts.
Due to the lack of specific information on additives in toys and childcare
articles the focus has been laid on products of soft plastic and rubber
materials. Hard plastic materials can also contain extender oils, however, it
was estimated that the content of extender oils and thereby the possible PAH
content would more common in soft plastic materials, and products of hard
plastic materials was therefore not included in this study.
2.5.1 Investigations of PAHs in products
At the moment the knowledge of PAHs in child articles on the Danish market
is very limited. In Germany the BfR (Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung)
have made larger investigations on PAHs in both consumer products and in
toys. The investigations found that a number of products contained PAHs.
However, it has not been possible to obtain these reports – only summary
from them. Apart from the German investigations the number of report on
PAHs in toys and childcare articles is very scarce.
BAuA (2010) has summarised a number of investigations of PAH in toys and
other consumer products as background information for a proposal of a
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