BTHA Toy Safety Update

The BTHA on Super Absorbent Polymers (SAP) used in toy products

In recent months, the British Toy & Hobby Association has expressed concerns regarding the increased use of Super Absorbent Polymers (SAP) in toys, most notably blasters. Toy World sat down with Jerry Burnie OBE, head of Compliance at the BTHA, to find out what dangers the organisation feels are posed by SAPs and what advice it is offering on their use.

What kind of products use SAPs?

Super Absorbent Polymers (a liquid absorbing material) have been used in toys for many years across different types of products, such as craft sets and expanding shapes. There are controls within the toy safety standards that ensure they do not expand too much, in a way that could become a hazard to children. But recently, new products have arrived on the market: blasters that fire SAP beads or pellets, some of which are supplied dehydrated and must be rehydrated before use.

Can these blasters technically be called toys?

Many companies currently supplying these products state that they are not for use by children under 14 years but are more like sporting products such as paint ball guns. Although these products fall outside of the toy category by age grading, they often look very similar to toy blasters in shape and colour, rather than sporting products. The products have also been showcased at toy fairs and are available to buy in toy stores, which causes further confusion.

Is it OK for them not to be toys?

Toy legislation in the UK and EU has several controls to ensure that these types of products have safety measures in place. Unfortunately, if they are not marketed as toys this means there is no existing safety standard that applies to this product category. When this happens, the new product category can often present uncontrolled hazards. Companies making these products are obligated to make sure they are safe but as no standard exists, this can result in different interpretations from company to company: it is subjective as to what is considered safe.

Historically this has been proven to cause safety issues with certain products. An example would be the introduction of high-powered magnets to toys more than 13 years ago, which resulted in changes to the safety standard.

Have you seen examples for sale that might present a safety issue?

The BTHA purchased a sample of these products online for testing, following concern about potential incidents relating to these products. There were seven SAP blasters, and seven individual packs of gel pellets (sold separately).

Of the seven SAP blaster products purchased:

• Four products were marked for children over 12 years

• One product had no age grade

• One product was marked as over 14 years but showed much younger children using the blaster, and one was marked as over 14 years with no younger children shown.

Of the seven packs of gel pellets purchased:

• Three were marked for children over 12 years

• One for children over six years

• Three had no age grade at all

Toy safety legislation covers children under 14 years old so many of the above products were actually claiming to be toys with their age grading. In addition, the blasters looked like toys rather than sporting products.

How are they unsafe?

The BTHA sent the products for independent testing as a toy based upon the findings detailed above. 100% failed testing against the general requirements of EN71-1 and ISO 8124-1.

All seven blaster products failed the requirements for:

• Expanding material limits

• Dangerous mechanisms that could injure a child

• Projectiles restrictions, as well as improvised projectiles

• 86% failed the acoustics requirements

It is likely that many of these products, even those clearly marked for over 14 years, will fail against the toy safety standards in a similar way, and are therefore not safe to be marketed as toys. The products were found to be much more powerful and noisy than toys, and likely to injure younger users.

Are the products correctly marketed to children over 14 years safe?

Even if the products are considered safe for children over 14 years, concern remains that younger siblings or pets could gain access to fired pellets, or that pellets not safely stored away from children in childproof containers could be swallowed. This is particularly true of products sold in toy stores or marketed as toys. Many of the pellets expand beyond toy limits and could cause choking or bowel obstruction, and are not visible on X-rays. In the UK, there have also been media reports of these products being used anti-socially as part of a TikTok challenge, resulting in injuries and hospitalisation.

What advice is the BTHA giving to its members?

It may well be possible that the products aimed at the older age grade of over 14 years could be safe - if used responsibly. However, from the BTHA’s research into this product category, many products on the market are incorrectly age graded and have no standard in place that can confirm safety within the over 14 years category at this time.

The BTHA’s advice to its members is to ensure that these types of products, regardless of age grading, comply with relevant parts of EN71-1 and to also consider more specific controls for the use of Super Absorbent Polymers in the latest version of the global standard ISO 8124.1: 2022.

For more information or support on this issue, contact the British Toy & Hobby Association or visit
www.btha.co.uk.