Many old resting mattresses and toys in Stockholm’s pre-schools have been replaced in recent years due to the high risk of content of hazardous substances. These actions are described in the guidance document for a chemical smart pre-school developed by the Chemical Centre at the Environment and Health Administration in the City of Stockholm, as one part of the work according to the Chemical Action Plan. To estimate the amount of hazardous substances phased out by replacement of toys and mattresses is one means of follow up on the actions taken.
Pre-school children in Stockholm are of the age one to six. In Sweden, there is a national curriculum already for the smallest children, although not being exhaustive at that age, this is the reason that the institutions where many children spend their day are not called day-care centres, nurseries or kindergartens. Due to this, the term pre-school is used throughout this report.
This report describes the effects of the efforts to reduce the occurrence of hazardous substances by discarding articles and materials with risk of containing HS in the pre-schools of Stockholm municipality. The calculations on hazardous substance reduction presented here are based on the findings in the NonHazCity project, where the Chemical Centre sent around 200 articles and materials for analysis. The articles and materials were both new and old, collected from pre-schools and purchased from the procured suppliers.
Read the full report here