The National Retail Association (NRA) has today released the second revision of the Children’s Apparel Product Safety Guidelines in an effort to improve child safety. The guidelines have been researched and compiled by the National Retail Association Technical Standards Committee group of quality assurance and product compliance specialists.
Children’s apparel safety
Children’s need for exploration and challenge drives them to use products in new and different ways, unfortunately, this also exposes them to multiple hazards such as choking, strangulation, entrapment, and chemical toxicity. Children are also unaware of cause and effect and are substantially less cautious than adults in relation to hazards and therefore products should be safe for their intended use and foreseeable conditions of misuse.
The Guidelines
This industry guide is designed to assist manufacturers, importers, suppliers, retailers and regulators to understand, identify and mitigate critical safety hazards associated with children’s apparel designed, marketed and intended for children from birth up to and including 14 years of age.
The guidelines were developed in consultation with key stakeholders including industry suppliers, retailers, regulators, testing laboratories and consumer associations.
The guide provides easy to navigate indexed sections that cover the following hazard topics:
- Risk assessment modelling
- Chemicals – restricted substances
- Laboratory test methods
- Minimising product risks
- Labelling
- A comprehensive section on cords, drawstrings, tied belts, sashes.
- Trims worksheets covering 11 different trim categories
About the Second Revision
The revision now only includes apparel and provides readers with a broad range of information to build safety considerations into design, from concept to finished articles. The guide uses a variety of existing Australian and international standards and reference points to provide a number of benchmarks and increased clarity on risk management principles. The scope of the cords/drawstring and trims section has also been broadened and now includes visual diagrams to explain and demonstrate specific rules that should be applied to address hazards.
DOWNLOAD THE GUIDELINES