Loose regulations governing the safety of plastic toys have left Hong Kong children exposed to dangerous chemicals, environment group Greenpeace charged on Wednesday.

Six out of 10 toys bought by Greenpeace in the city were found containing phthalates. That is a chemical is widely used as a plastic softener, but carries serious health concerns, the organization said.

Those concerns relate to hormone malfunctions, reproductive toxicity and genital abnormalities in babies, especially boys, said Greenpeace campaigner Vivian Yu.

A small toy football manufactured in Guangzhou was rated the most toxic among the six toys tested. Greenpeace said the football contained about 27 percent of phthalates by total weight.

The organization also purchased 30 toy samples from shops on the mainland, in which high levels of the chemical were found .

Fifteen contained levels up to 43 percent. That is hundreds of times in excess of United States health standards, the organization contended.

The European Union and the US have already banned the use of six common types of phthalates in children's products commencing in 1999.

The EU standard requires that all types of the chemical in aggregate should comprise no more than 0.1 percent of the total weight. The US demands that the level of any type of phthalates be no higher than 0.1 percent. Some Asian countries and regions, including Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore, have similar restrictions.

In February, the EU mapped out a plan to gradually eliminate three types of the chemical in the next three to five years.

"Yet on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong, kids are unprotected from these harmful toxins," Yu said.

None of three international standards of toy safety adopted in Hong Kong contains any regulation over phthalates, Yu said.

She noted the standards that apply here are "very loose" and have been abandoned by the EU for many years.

The mainland has limited regulations, affecting only surface coatings of children's toys, which is far from satisfactory, she said.

Yu said children and infants are particularly vulnerable to phthalates exposure because they like to put toys into their mouths.

Even if the toys are simply discarded and never used, the toxic chemicals they contain are easily capable of leaching into the surrounding environment.

It's actually quite difficult for parents to recognize and avoid toxic toys, she said.

Greenpeace is dissatisfied with current regulations, noting that Hong Kong's Toys and Children's Products Safety (Amendment) Ordinance 2010 failed to address concerns about so-called gender-bending chemicals.

Greenpeace urged the government to ban the use of phthalates in children's products immediately and to carry out tests on a regular basis.

A spokesperson for the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau responded on Wednesday evening that one of the three safety standards does include some regulations on the chemical, but they apply only to particular types of toys.

The bureau will consider tacking extra regulations onto the safety standards, the spokesperson said.

China Daily

(HK Edition 05/19/2011 page1)