CPSC Extends Comment Period to Weigh in on New Toy Safety Requirements for Water Beads

November 5, 2024 | The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has voted to extend the public comment period for its notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) on adding additional performance and labeling requirements for toys that are composed of or contain water beads. The new deadline is December 8.

The 30-day extension is in response to a letter submitted by The Toy Association on October 21 requesting an extension of the comment period in order to provide stakeholders with time to review additional testing data, specifically on CPSC’s acrylamide testing related to water beads. In April, The Toy Association submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the data, which was denied by CPSC in June, on the basis that the information would be made public as part of the water bead rulemaking process in a Notice of Availability (NOA). However, the September 9 NPR did not include the requested data.

Upon further inquiry, the FOIA request was reopened and information was provided to The Toy Association on October 7, but only via the FOIA website; the public was not notified of this information. The request for extension for the NPR sought to make this information widely available and extend the timeframe of the public comment period to allow this information to be considered by all stakeholders as part of the NPR review. Following The Toy Association’s request for extension of the comment period, CPSC added the acrylamide testing information to the incident data packet available on request and referenced in the NPR. The missing data is now available to all who have already received access to the NPR data; for others, access can be requested by submitting an email address to CPSC here.

At the time of this writing, the NPR has not yet been updated to indicate the new deadline of December 8, but The Toy Association received notification from CPSC of the vote to approve the extension on November 4, and we anticipate that CPSC will notify the public before the previous November 8 deadline expires this week.

The Toy Association is developing comments on behalf of the industry and will submit them to CPSC by the new December 8 public comment deadline. Toy companies that wish to have their input incorporated into the comments are encouraged to send their feedback to The Toy Association’s Jos Huxley, senior vice president of technical affairs.

The Toy Association will continue to keep the industry apprised of ongoing developments on this topic. Members may reach out to The Toy Association's Joan Lawrence or Jos Huxley with any questions.