The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is moving forward with its efforts to help ensure the safety of consumer products that incorporate button cell or coin batteries.
Published in the U.S. Federal Register, the CPSC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) would establish performance testing requirements that would better secure button cell or coin battery compartments to prevent child access under reasonably foreseeable use conditions. The proposed requirements would include device accessibility and abuse testing, as well as labeling requirements for button cell or coin battery packaging or devices that include such batteries.
The CPSC’s requirements are mandated under Reese’s Law, which was signed into law in August 2022 in memory of Reese Hamsmith, an 18-month-old child who died in 2020 after ingesting a button cell battery used in a remote control device.
Interested parties can comment on the proposed performance requirements through the Regulations.gov website (reference CPSC Docket No. 2023-0004) through March 13th.
