Schleich Animal Figurines
May 20, 2014, by Debra Lynn Dadd
Question from TA
Hi Debra, Could you tell me whether you think these Schleich animal figures are safe for young children? My child is beyond the age of putting things into his mouth, but I am still curious about whether this type of plastic is safe for play. They say they meet and exceed European standards and so forth. Your thoughts?
Here is an excerpt from their FAQ page:
"We not only set tight controls for ourselves and our production stages, we begin with our materials suppliers. They are only approved for use in Schleich products if they are aware of the quality of their processes and materials, comply with international toy regulations and can present the relevant laboratory reports.
The main materials we use are a variety of plastics and a special softener. We make sure that this is used in the same way all over the world so that small parts cannot break off our figures and the material is pleasant to the touch and not too hard. This softener was developed and tested by BASF for particularly demanding applications. It is not only approved for use in toy manufacturing but also for food packaging and for use in the medical field for example as bags for blood products, breathing tubes etc. This means that here too, we are meeting all legal requirements.
Schleich quality assurance staff check and control all production premises as well as our materials suppliers every year."
Debra's Answer
Well that's a very nice description, but there is no mention of what TYPE of plastic it is, nor is there a customer service phone number or even a USA email.
So I can't evaluate this.
It sounds like they are aware of toxic plastics and are wanting to offer a safer one, but I have no way to validate that.
Compliance with international regulations does not mean it's necessarily nontoxic and if we don't know what those regulations are specifically we can't check them.
I'm not saying there's anything toxic about these toys, I'm saying not enough information to evaluate.
These are archives of Q&A asked by readers and answered by Debra Lynn Dadd (from 2005-2019) or Lisa Powers (from 2019-2020). Answers have been edited and updated as of December, 2020.