Lowering Lead

A Guide to Complying with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act

By Peggy Jo Donahue

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 dropped from 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 went from 600 ppm to 90 ppm on the same date.

On Aug. 19, 2009, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) voted to exempt precious metals (karat gold, sterling silver and platinum group metals) and gemstones from the testing and certification requirements of the CPSIA, provided that the named materials hadn’t been treated or changed in ways that would result in the addition of lead. MJSA had long lobbied for the exemption and was able to prove that the above products are either lead-free or contain so little lead as to be below CPSIA lead safety requirements. For more information on this ruling, click here.

Makers and importers of base-metal children’s jewelry, however, must still comply with the third party testing and certification requirements of CPSIA, to ensure their products meet the CPSIA standards. The tests must be performed by labs accredited by the CPSC, and any children’s jewelry without certificates of compliance cannot be imported or distributed in the United States.

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.

NOTE: For information on several state lead laws that are not preempted by the federal CPSIA, see State Lead Law Report at the end of this Guide.

Step 1: Determine Your Level of Risk

• If you make, assemble, or import fine jewelry for children 12 and under, and that jewelry is crafted ONLY with precious metals, your jewelry is exempt from the test and certification requirements of the CPSIA (provided those materials haven’t been treated or changed in ways that would result in the addition of lead). Precious metal jewelry has very little chance of containing lead—and if it did, you’d know about it, since “even in minute quantities, [lead] can wreak havoc in a goldsmith’s shop,” says consultant J. Tyler Teague. In consultation with other metallurgists, Teague has estimated that any amount of lead above about 30 ppm can cause problems in precious metal jewelry, such as cracking in karat gold. In the highly unlikely event that lead contamination occurs in precious-metal jewelry, its entry would likely be through gold alloys that may have accidently used free machining brass scrap as a master alloy component. This type of brass can contain lead, says Teague.

• Determine if your jewelry is for children 12 and under. The CPSIA primarily considers the following factors when looking at a product: 1.) a manufacturer’s statement and/or label of intended use; 2.) the packaging, display, promotion or advertising of the product; and 3.) whether it is commonly recognized by consumers as intended for children 12 and under. It comes down to intent — if a consumer buys a child a silver bangle marketed to 20-somethings, it probably wouldn’t be considered children’s jewelry. But silver bangles in Disney character packaging would likely be viewed as a children’s product.

• If you make, assemble, or import jewelry for children 12 and under, and that jewelry is crafted with base metals, you must comply with the requirement of the CPSIA and ensure that your products contain less than 300 ppm of lead. See Step 2.

Step 2: Know the Chemical/Material Content of Your Jewelry’s Raw Materials

• Get assurances that your children’s jewelry suppliers don’t use lead-containing alloys. This is the key to avoiding problems, says Howard Schachter. Assurances should come in the form of a written document in which your suppliers assert that their products are not made from lead-containing alloys.

• If the materials in your children’s products are found to exceed the new lead limits, consider substituting lead-free alloys. These alloys have a higher content of tin and/or several other ingredients. (The most common lead-free alloys have anywhere from 92 percent to 98 percent tin, with varying additions of antimony, copper, bismuth, or silver.) They result in good-looking lead-free products, says Schachter, who developed lead-free alloys used in pewter and solders. However, those alloys typically have a higher cost—about 25 percent higher than the commonly used leaded alloys, according to some observers—and can produce rougher castings that require more finishing. Experts can help manufacturers switch to these alloys; importers can ask overseas base metal jewelry suppliers to use lead-free alloys as well.

• You cannot rely on plating to mask lead content in children’s jewelry. No matter how well plated or encapsulated base metal jewelry is, the CPSIA’s required testing (acid digestion) may still turn up lead amounts over the designated limits. The law states: “paint, coatings, or electroplating may not be considered to be a barrier that would render lead in the substrate inaccessible to a child.”

Step 3: Get Tested

• All non-precious-metal children’s jewelry manufacturers and importers are required now to submit samples of their products to a CPSC-certified, independent lab for lead testing. A listing of certified labs is available on the CPSC website (cpsc.gov/cgi-bin/labapplist.aspx).

• A single sample of a children’s jewelry product line may be all that has to be tested, says Schachter, if the line is “materially identical and made in the same fashion.” Changes in materials or design, however, could alter testing results, so you may need help from a quality assurance expert to determine how much to test.

• However, each component in a piece of children’s jewelry must be tested. That includes elements such as jump rings, closures, beads, paints or coatings, says consultant James Troiano. He recommends that you ask your lab or a consultant to help you design a testing program that’s complete and will satisfy CPSIA regulations.

Step 4: Put It in Writing

• A certificate must accompany your shipments of children’s jewelry, in paper or electronic form. The certificate must show that testing against CPSIA requirements was conducted. The CPSC-certified lab that tested your products can assist you in ensuring all necessary details are included.

* The CPSC has created a PDF of the facts that must be included on the certificate, instructions for completing it, and a list of FAQs (cpsc.gov/about/cpsia/faq/elecertfaq.pdf), which your chosen lab will use for guidance.


Step 5: Create Marking and Tracking Labels

• The CPSIA requires, “to the extent practicable, the placement of permanent, distinguishing marks on children’s products and packaging,” that allows a product to be tracked to its specific source. The marks, according to the CPSIA, are to enable the manufacturer to ascertain: 1.) the location and date of production (a date “range” is OK, and the date of production means the date of the final product’s assembly or placement into one package); 2.) cohort information (including the batch, run number or other identifying characteristics); and 3.) any other information needed to find the source of the product. The marks should also allow consumers to ascertain: 1.) the name of the country and the city and state or administrative region where the product was manufactured; 2.) the name of the manufacturer or private labeler; 3.) the location and date of production; and 4.) the cohort information.

• The labeling requirements for children’s jewelry went into effect Aug. 14, 2009. But the CPSC acknowledged, in a policy issued July 20, 2009, that manufacturers would need more time to comply, and said it would recognize manufacturers’ and importers’ good faith efforts toward compliance.

• CPSC also ruled on July 20 that when items are too small to be marked or if the aesthetics of the product would be ruined by a mark and a mark cannot be placed in an accessible but inconspicuous location, the required tracking information could be included on the packaging for the product instead. An adhesive label might be sufficient for a packaging mark. (MJSA, among others, had complained that many small jewelry items lacked the surface space for the permanent labeling required by the law.)

• CPSC also decided that small volume manufacturers and crafters of children’s products don’t need to create a labeling system using lot, batch or run numbers, as long as they keep adequate records of the components used in their products, as well as the factories and time frames in which they were made.

Note on State Lead Laws

The CPSIA includes language stating that it preempts most state lead laws. However, there are three categories of state lead laws to which manufacturers and importers of all children’s jewelry must pay attention.

In the first category are laws specifically not exempted. Here you have California’s Proposition 65. Enacted in 1986, it requires warning labels for products that contain toxic substances, including lead. Proposition 65 is not preempted because the CPSIA includes a clause saying the act does not preempt laws in effect on or before Aug. 31, 2003—and Prop 65 meets that standard.

Next are laws that don’t focus specifically on children’s jewelry, but require certificates of compliance be available for all jewelry items, including those for adults. The first of these is California’s Lead-Containing Jewelry Law, passed in 2006 and revised in 2009; it restricts the lead content allowed in adult jewelry. Any company selling this type of jewelry in California must conform to the law’s requirements–which are in addition to the lead limit requirements on children’s jewelry in the federal CPSIA. Click here to see California ‘s Lead in Jewelry webpage.

Minnesota also revised its statutes in 2008 to include language nearly identical to California’s Lead-Containing Jewelry Law. Click here to see that statute.

Finally, in a more worrying development, Illinois has amended its Lead Poisoning Prevention Act to include a warning label requirement—which the state asserts is also not preempted by the CPSIA. Effective Jan. 1, 2010, the Illinois law requires that certain children’s products, including jewelry, with a lead content that’s below the CPSIA’s 300 ppm limit but more than 40 ppm must have a label with the following language: "WARNING: CONTAINS LEAD. MAY BE HARMFUL IF EATEN OR CHEWED. MAY GENERATE DUST CONTAINING LEAD."

Suppliers selling into Illinois may wish to use lead-free alloys to conform to the new law. If required by retailers, suppliers can also easily obtain third-party testing to prove their products are under 40 ppm. Labs confirm that by using ICP Spectrometers they can analyze lead to this extremely low level.

Click here for more information about the Illinois law.