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Survey of chemical substances in toys for animals

1 Introduction

• 1.1 Purpose
• 1.2 Method

58% of the families with children in Denmark have pets. Far the most of these families also possess toys for the animal. Toys for dogs and cats are not very dissimilar from toys for children and will often lie available all over the house.

Thus there is an actual risk that small children will play with the animal's toys. Small children often put the toys into their mouth, they bite in it and will, in some cases, suck at it for a while. Children who are playing with toys for animals may be exposed to the chemical substances that the toys give off, if any.

Toys for animals are produced in a wealth of different forms and often in colourful materials, and, as mentioned, they look very much like toys that are produced for babies.

Toys for animals are not required to meet the requirements for safety existing for toys for children. I.e. toys for children at the age 0-3 years are not allowed to hold more than 0.05% phthalates. Phthalates are used as plasticizers in plastics. Therefore the materials were screened for PVC which often contains phthalates already in the first phase of the examination.

1.1 Purpose

To elucidate the chemical effect from toys for animals that children can be exposed to, it is the purpose of this project to map the Danish market for toys for animals. The existing types of toys are found and it is examined which materials have been used. The project must examine the toys for animals in order to state the release of phthalates, heavy metals and other problematic substances according to requirements and guidelines for toys for children.

1.2 Method

The project only comprehends toys for cats and dogs. This has two reasons:

First because most of the toys for animals in the market are aiming at cats and dogs, while only a limited part is for rodents, birds and fish. Secondly because toys for rodents, birds and fish will often be situated in a cage/aquarium, not causing children to be in direct contact with the toys.

Another criteria for the selection of toys for this project was that it was found to appeal to children.

The selection has not been consciously made to pick products made of special materials or from special importers, wholesalers or retailers.

In the first phase of the project, which should examine what products existed in the Danish market and screen for material composition of the products and evaluate the quantity of products sold, the following means were used:

• Internet searching
• Contact to wholesalers
• Visits to pet dealers and supermarkets
• Purchasing of products
• FTIR analyses
• Identification of chlorine (Beilstein's analysis)

In the second phase of the project, analyses have been made which are relevant to the types of materials found in phase 1. All products are thus not analysed for all substances.

For some products consisting of more materials, each of the materials have been analysed, but for the main part of the products only the materials that were found to be most important were analysed.

According to agreement with the MST analyses as stated in Table 1.1 were made.

TABLE 1.1.

Abbreviations for applied techniques:

GC/MS: Gaschromatography with mass spectrometric detector

XRF: X-ray fluorescence

FTIR: Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy

HPLC: High pressure liquid chromatography

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Version 1.0 June 2005, © Danish Environmental Protection Agency