Washington, D.C., November 3-The ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board/ACLASS announce that ACLASS meets the safety requirements for accrediting testing laboratories under the first and second phase of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). Issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), these new requirements guide the safe manufacture of certain children’s products.

According to prerequisites defined in Public Law 110-314, the CPSIA, manufacturers and private labelers must submit samples of certain children’s products for testing by an independent laboratory before those products can be imported, warehoused or sold in the United States. The requirements apply to any product manufactured more than 90 days after the commission has announced its conditions for conformance with a specific safety rule.

The first item addressed by the CPSIA, in September of 2008, covered lead paint. The second set of requirements specifies testing for full-size cribs, non-full-size cribs, and pacifiers. The CPSC announced the new requirements in the October 22, 2008, publication of the Federal Register. The requirements will become enforceable on January 20, 2009, joining prior mandates under the CPSIA. An approved third-party body must accredit laboratories in order to meet the CPSC’s specifications for the testing of these products.

“A critical element of ensuring that children’s products are safe is accurate and reliable third-party testing,” says Keith Greenway, ACLASS vice president. “Our services can demonstrate a testing laboratory’s level of competence, not only to CPSC and Congress, but also to manufacturers, importers, retailers and the general public.”

Further requirements of the CPSIA legislation state that the accreditation bodies must themselves be recognized by the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC), a cooperation of more than 70 peer laboratory and inspection accreditation bodies around the world.