GB 18586-2001Indoor decorating and refurbishing materials - Limit of harmful substances of polyvinyl chloride floor coverings (English PDF)

1 Scope

This standard specifies the limits of the harmful substances in polyvinyl chloride roll flooring, the test methods, the inspection rules and the marking.

It applies to the polyvinyl chloride roll floor coverings used in interior decoration.

What is limited and why

Sheet vinyl is the largest single area of plastic in a finished interior, and it goes on releasing into the room long after it is laid. What the standard controls are the substances that leave the material and enter the air or reach the occupant through the surface.

The residual vinyl chloride monomer is what the polymer was made from and is a recognised carcinogen. The volatile matter released from the product is dominated by the plasticizers and by the residual solvents of the manufacture. The extractable lead and cadmium come from the stabilisers that keep PVC from degrading, and they matter because the surface is walked on, crawled on and repeatedly cleaned.

How the limits are applied

The limits are set separately according to whether the flooring has a foamed backing layer, because a foamed product carries more volatile matter per unit area than a compact one and would otherwise be judged unfairly against it.

Clause 4 gives the test methods for each determination, clause 5 the inspection rules with the sampling and the criteria for accepting a batch, and clause 6 what the marking must declare.

About this edition

GB 18586-2001 is the current edition. It was issued on 2 January 2001 and has been in force since 1 January 2002.

The interval between issue and effect is the transition period. It exists so that producers, laboratories and buyers can requalify products, revise procedures and use up documentation before the new text becomes the one that applies. The date on this page is the official one from the record of the Standardization Administration.

Classification and status

GB 18586-2001 is classified under ICS 83.140. ICS is the International Classification for Standards, the same scheme used by ISO and by the national bodies of most countries, which is what allows a Chinese standard to be placed beside its foreign counterparts on subject rather than on number.

Its Chinese Standard Classification code is CCS W 56. CCS is the domestic scheme, a letter for the sector and two digits for the subject within it, and it is the code by which the standard is filed and searched in China.

The GB prefix marks a mandatory national standard. Compliance is required by law within China: it applies to what is made, sold or imported there, and an inspection body will judge a product against it whether or not a contract names it.

How a Chinese national standard is set out

Chinese national standards are drafted to the rules of GB/T 1.1, which fixes the order in which a standard is set out. The document opens with a foreword recording the issuing bodies, the relationship to any previous edition and the technical committee responsible for it. Clause 1 is the scope. Clause 2 lists the normative references — the other standards that have to be applied together with this one, and without which its requirements cannot be met. Clause 3 gives the terms and definitions. The technical clauses follow: the requirements themselves, the test or measurement methods by which conformity is established, the inspection rules that say how a lot is sampled and judged, and, for a product standard, the provisions on marking, packaging, transport and storage. Annexes, normative or informative, come last.

GB 18586-2001 runs to 15 pages in the English translation. What is delivered is the complete document in that order: every clause, every table, every figure and every annex of the Chinese original, with the same numbering, so that a reference to a clause number in a contract or a test report points to the same place in both languages.

About this English translation

The English edition of GB 18586-2001 is a full translation of the official Chinese text, not a summary, an abstract or a machine rendering left unchecked. Clause and subclause numbers, table and figure numbers and annex letters are those of the original, because they are what a specification, a purchase order or a test report cites.

Technical terms are translated against the vocabulary standards of the same field, so that a term used in GB 18586-2001 reads the same way as in the other Chinese standards it is used beside. Where a term has an established English form in an ISO or IEC document on the same subject, that form is used; where China's term has no foreign counterpart, it is translated literally and the Chinese is kept alongside it rather than replaced by an approximation.

Quantities, units and symbols are carried over unchanged. Chinese standards use SI, so a value in the translation is the value in the original document, not a conversion, and a limit read from the English text is the limit that will be applied by a Chinese inspection body reading the Chinese one.

This page is compiled from the official publication record: the standard number and both titles, the issuing bodies, the dates of issue and effect, the ICS and CCS classification. The requirements, limits, tables and test conditions are in the document itself.