Working Group Consumer Goods

• Materials and articles intended to come into contact with food
  (e.g. cooking, drinking and eating utensils, packaging materials)
• Products that come into contact with the body
  (e.g. clothing, including shoes, and accessories such as bracelets and stud earrings)
• Toys (for babies, children and adults) and novelty items
  The aforementioned everyday consumer goods can be made from a wide variety of materials, e.g. glass, ceramics, wood, metal, leather, textiles and plastics (e.g. PE, PP, PA, PES, PVC).

• Household chemicals (e.g. detergents, all-purpose cleaners, and impregnating and finishing agents for textiles)
• Cleaning agents used in food production
• as well as fragrance oils for improving indoor air quality

• Advice to federal authorities: Preparation of comments on national and European legal regulations
• Exchange of information and cooperation with national and international expert committees (e.g. DIN, CEN, Plastics Commission)
• Development of analytical methods for examining consumer goods, including proficiency testing, discussion of current topics relating to consumer goods
• public relations: Information events on consumer goods, publications and comments on selected topics

• Nickel release from metal objects in contact with the skin
• Azo dyes in textiles and leather
• Analysis of chromium(VI) in leather
• Analysis of sensitising disperse dyes in textiles
• Food packaging: analysis of isopropylthioxanthone (ITX) and food contamination caused by printed packaging

• Phthalate esters in toys
• Formaldehyde release from wooden jigsaw puzzles
• Nanoparticles in washing and cleaning products
• Restriction of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment – analysis and significance for consumer goods
• Lead-containing fashion jewellery for children – test methods, legal regulations

Position papers

• Position paper on the organisation of monitoring of consumer articles: Food chemists continue to be the experts in food and consumer protection! (2012) (pdf)
• Hazardous substances in toys (2008) (pdf)
• Position paper on the new regulation of nickel in the Consumer Articles Ordinance, (food chemistry 60, 74, 2006) (pdf)

Publications

• Chromium(VI) in leather consumer articles (2007) (pdf)
• Analysis of flame-retardant textiles, (food chemistry 60, 2 (2006)
• Analysis of pentachlorophenol (PCP), (food chemistry 59, 52, 2005)

• Analysis of consumer goods, L.W. Kroh (ed.), 2007, Behr`s Verlag Hamburg
• Consumer goods, A. Montag, 1997, Behr`s Verlag Hamburg
• Handbook for food chemists, W. Frede (ed.), 2006, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg