BETHESDA, MD – A Consumer Product Safety Commission rule exempting several electronics devices from lead-content limits for children’s products goes into effect next week.

The agency cited technological impossibilities for the exemptions to a 2008 law requiring products designed or intended primarily for children 12 and younger contain no more than 300 ppm of lead.
 
The CPSC’s final rule, effective Jan. 20, grants the following exemptions: lead blended into the glass of cathode ray tubes, electronic components and fluorescent tubes; lead used as an alloying element in steel (the maximum amount must be less than 0.35% by weight); lead used in the manufacture of aluminum (the maximum amount must be less than 0.4% by weight); lead used in copper-based alloys (the maximum amount must be less than 4% by weight); lead used in lead-bronze bearing shells and bushings; lead used in compliant pin connector systems; lead used in optical and filter glass; lead oxide in plasma display panels and surface conduction electron emitter displays used in structural elements, and lead oxide in the glass envelope of black light blue lamps.
 
The rule also exempts removable or replaceable components.
 
As of Aug. 14, 2011, this limit will be reduced to 100 ppm, unless the commission determines it to be technologically impossible to meet.
 
Components not accessible to children are exempt.
 
If the commission finds it not feasible for certain devices to meet the Pb-limit requirements, it must issue regulatory requirements to eliminate or minimize the potential for exposure to and accessibility of lead in these devices, and create a schedule for achieving full compliance, unless not technologically possible.

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