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From Home Furnishing Business
ASTM Subcommittee Approves New Tip-Over Warning Label
October 30,
2017 by Larry Thomas in Business Strategy, Designer Weekly, Industry 
ASTM International’s subcommittee on furniture safety has updated its voluntary tip-over standards by introducing a new warning label and revising the language on the label’s introduction.
The updated standard, now known as ASTM F2057-17, Standard Safety Specification for Clothing Storage Units, applies to all clothing storage units 30 inches high and taller that are manufactured after Oct. 27, the date ASTM published the revisions.
According to Bill Purdue, vice president of regulatory affairs for the American Home Furnishings Alliance, the primary change to the warning label is the addition of a hazard symbol. It includes a pictograph of a child climbing the drawers of a dresser. Over the pictograph is a hazard symbol consisting of a circle with a line through it. The circle and line may be in black or red.
Purdue said the language in the safety standard’s introduction was revised to clarify that the standard does not address hazards created by “blatant misuse of a product including, but not limited to, use of the product in a manner that is neither intended by the manufacturer nor reasonably foreseeable.”
Among those contributing to the F2057 revisions, in addition to Perdue, were executives from furniture manufacturers and importers (both AHFA members and non-member companies), representatives from consumer safety groups such as the nonprofit organization Kids in Danger, Consumer Product Safety Commission staff members and parents who have lost children in tip-over accidents.