A public consultation, which will run until 10 September, has been opened on a preliminary opinion by the European Commission and its Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) with a view to adapting the migration limits for aluminium in toys.
In the preliminary opinion, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recommends a tolerable daily intake of 0.3 mg/kg bodyweight/day. Migration limits for aluminium from toys are calculated according to the current legislation, which allocates 10% of the tolerable daily intake to toys, and are set at 2,250 mg aluminium/kg of dry, brittle, powder-like or pliable toy material, 560 mg aluminium/kg of liquid or sticky toy material and 28,130 mg aluminium/kg of scraped-off toy material.
Given that consumers are exposed to aluminium from many sources, in particular from diet, the SCHEER experts recommend that the additional exposure from toys should be minimised.
The Commission requested SCHEER to review the currently available data on the toxicity of aluminium, taking into account the acceptable levels established by EFSA in 2008 and by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) in 2011.
All interested parties are invited to submit written comments online by 23.59 (CET) on 10 September 2017. https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/aluminium_toys (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)