Under the banner of environmental protection, children's mats with excessive formamide should be soft but harder than standard
Our reporter Li He
Playing on soft and thick mats is not easy to bump, plus simple cleaning and convenient storage, making the use of children's mats very common in daily life. According to reports, some media reporters bought 10 children's mats and sent them to third-party testing agencies to refer to relevant international standards and domestic group standards for testing. It was found that 6 of these products exceeded the standard of formamide, and the highest standard exceeded 17 times. Moreover, these "poison mats" are sold under the name of environmental protection without exception, and are mostly hot products.
From toxic plastic runways to floor mats with excessive formamide, every product related to children's health and safety affects the hearts of parents. What harm does excessive formamide cause to human body? Why does it appear on the floor mat? How to keep children away from the harm of these substandard products? With these questions, the reporter of Science and Technology Daily interviewed relevant experts.
Formamide damages children irreversibly
The problem of children's "poison mats" did not appear recently. In 2015, the Jiangsu Province Quality Supervision Bureau issued a quality analysis report on the risk monitoring of child safety mat products. Among the 120 children’s mats, more than 40% of the samples had physical safety and chemical indicators that had potential safety hazards, including excessive formamide content. The issue of limit values.
In 2018, the official website of the Shanghai Huangpu District Market Supervision Administration announced 15 batches of children’s mats product quality risk monitoring, and 7 batches of product formamide test results exceeded the reference standard limit.
"The exposed formamide, also known as aminoformaldehyde, is an organic solvent. It has a very slow and long-term volatile release process like formaldehyde." Peng Yingdeng, a researcher at the National Urban Environmental Pollution Control Technology Research Center, was accepted by the Science and Technology Daily reporter. Said during the interview.
According to relevant EU regulations, formamide is classified as a reproductive toxic substance, and the harm caused to children is irreversible. Studies on formamide have confirmed that formamide can be absorbed into the body through the respiratory tract, digestive tract and skin and mucous membranes, and even in severe cases can cause leukemia. Animal experiments show that excessive formamide can damage the animal's nervous system, vascular system and liver, reduce animal reproductive capacity and pup survival rate. In addition, formamide will release ammonia gas when it encounters high temperature, and excessive ammonia gas will cause damage to eyes and skin mucous membranes. To this end, the European Chemicals Agency has included formamide in the list of substances requiring high attention.
Peng Yingdeng said that in addition to being used in families, children's floor mats are also widely used in kindergartens, playgrounds and other places. Children crawl, roll, and play on the floor mat. Not only does the skin directly touch the floor mat, but also their nose and mouth are very close to the floor mat. Especially young children may also lick and bite the mat. Therefore, the formamide exceeds the standard The health hazards of children’s mats should not be underestimated. Products like organic mats containing organic solvents should be used outdoors. Outdoors are open, and formamide and other volatiles diffuse quickly, which can reduce health hazards. The indoor space is small and the enclosure is strong. Even if the window is ventilated, formamide will still accumulate and the concentration will rise.
Reducing formamide must change the production process and raw materials
At present, there are mainly two types of children's mats on the market: splicing models and overall models. The main materials are ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) and polyethylene (PE). PE also includes physical foamed polyethylene (EPE) and chemicals. Cross-linked polyethylene foam (XPE) and other materials.
Wei Wenfeng, who had been engaged in product testing in the laboratory of Zhejiang Inspection and Quarantine Bureau for 10 years, told Sci-Tech Daily that formamide was produced in the production process of floor mats. In the foaming process of production, the azodicarbonamide (AC) foaming agent used will decompose and reorganize under high temperature conditions, and then form formamide.
At present, children's floor mat products follow the national toy testing standards, but in this standard, there is no mandatory requirement for the detection of formamide. Some production companies use a large amount of foaming agent. The more the amount of addition, the more foaming, the lighter the mat, the more flexible the product, which can save a lot of costs, but at the same time, the residual formamide content will also be Increase accordingly.
Wei Wenfeng reminded that the raw materials for the production of mats such as EVA and PE are safe, but the foaming agent is added in the subsequent foaming process, resulting in a large amount of formamide. In the foaming process, PE mats such as XPE basically replaced butane with azodicarbonamide foaming agent. Therefore, most of the over-formamide is made of EVA.
From the price point of view, the average price of floor mats with excessive formamide is relatively low, most of them are priced at less than 50 yuan, and the cheapest 9.9 yuan 10 pieces of free shipping. The four floor mats with formamide content meeting the standard, the price is more than 200 yuan. The cheapest compliant mat, priced at 99 yuan 6 pieces.
"Reducing the formamide in the product is not impossible, but it needs to improve the original relatively extensive production process, spend more time on drying, etc. In this way, it will inevitably increase certain production costs." Peng Yingdeng said.
Some manufacturers said that another reason for the excessive formamide is the repeated use of recycled materials. The prices of raw materials and recycled materials are more than half different, and some manufacturers use recycled materials in order to control costs.
Multi-party efforts to solve the "poison mat" worry
In 2018, Shenzhen formulated and implemented the "Technical Requirements for Chemical Safety of Plastic Mats for Children". In the same year, the China Toys and Baby Products Association issued the first domestic safety standard for children’s floor mats, Safety Requirements for Children’s Floor Mats, which requires that formamide should not exceed 200 mg/kg. Although these standards require limits on the content of formamide, they are not mandatory and the scope of application has certain limitations.
In order to reduce the impact of formamide on children's health, France and other countries have imposed mandatory requirements on formamide limits. Wei Wenfeng said: "At present, there is still a certain gap between the domestic and international chemical safety standards for children's toys and consumer products."
Wei Wenfeng said that consumers and the media are now paying attention to the limits of toxic and hazardous chemicals in children's products, reflecting the awakening of consumers' awareness of self-protection. However, it takes a long time for the country to promulgate a standard. Many considerations, rather than wait and see, consumers might as well take active actions to enhance safety awareness, so that there is no market for inferior texture pads.
Peng Yingdeng said that children are in the developmental stage, and formamide will be released for a long time. Unqualified floor mats and other products have a greater impact on children's health. Group standards should be changed to mandatory standards as soon as possible, so that supervision and law enforcement can be justified. In addition to establishing mandatory standards, alternatives that meet health requirements should be developed as soon as possible.
"The e-commerce platform should raise the safety threshold for children's floor mat products." Dr. Mao Da, the director of the non-toxic pioneer academic of the environmental protection organization, said that children's floor mat products sold on the e-commerce platform should have higher requirements for production enterprises, and Announce product material information, testing data, etc., in the online shopping process to protect consumers' right to know.
The non-toxic pioneer once purchased the small yellow duck toy on the e-commerce platform and sent the sample to a qualified third-party testing agency for testing. It was found that the plastic toy represented by the small yellow duck has a serious plasticizer phthalic acid Ester content exceeds the standard, exceeding the national standard limit of 153 times. On the e-commerce platform, the "compulsory product certification system" 3C certification information disclosure rate is only 50%.
In December 2018, children's floor mat products have been included in the scope of national mandatory 3C certification, that is to say, children's floor mats without 3C certification are not allowed to be sold in the market. Mao Da reminded that consumers should confirm whether there is a 3C certification mark on the product outsourcing when buying children's mats, and pay attention to distinguishing.
Many experts suggest that consumers should pay attention to whether there is an irritating odor before buying children's mats or when receiving goods. If the unpacked product has a pungent smell, it may be that the formamide exceeds the standard, and it is not recommended to buy it.