Source: Radio New Zealand
Recalled sand products. Supplied / MBIE
For Christchurch father of two Joe Baxter, there was no question he needed to act fast when alarms were raised over asbestos in children’s play sand sold by Kmart.
“We were doing what was logical, we were removing the threat,” the teacher said.
It was mid-November when the alert went out; three Magic Sand colour sets and a sandcastle building kit were being recalled after testing positive for tremolite, a form of asbestos.
“We had to act, without good information we had to act on it and clear it up as quickly as possible,” Baxter told RNZ.
One of the three tubs in the house matched the batch numbers being recalled.
Toys were thrown out and carpet ripped up from about three-quarters of the house that had the sand in it.
But weeks later came an about turn – the recall was cancelled – Kmart said there was no evidence of asbestos in the initially recalled sand.
“So there’s two-and-a-half, three weeks in which time what were we meant to do?” Baxter said.
“Were we meant to leave our house contaminated? Were we meant to live with the idea that we had asbestos in the house while children were playing?”
That wasn’t a feasible option, Baxter said.
The sand was evident in many parts of the house. Supplied
“And it’s not something we could have done in good conscience, so we had to act to remove it.
“We wanted to know that we’d done everything possible to make sure that the hazard was not there in the house.”
Baxter did not get the house tested for contamination before lifting up the carpet, but pointed to the official recall of asbestos already being found in the batch of sand his family had.
“One of the products that we had in our house was confirmed by them to be having asbestos in it at the time,” he said.
“Really, there was no need to get that batch tested because they themselves had confirmed the asbestos in it.
“So what we needed to do then was not to pay more money to confirm what we already knew,” he said.
What needed to happen, Baxter said, was to remove the hazard as quickly as possible.
The carpet came up in a day with the help of Baxter’s father.
“The living room, the hallway, the kids’ bedroom, we removed that because we knew there were trace elements, we could see it,” he said.
Carpet in the home was ripped up over asbestos fears. Supplied
“Or, we just knew that it had been played with in there.”
That left Baxter and his family out of carpet and out of pocket and struggling for guidance from Kmart since.
Complicating matters, was that the family had three tubs of play sand – one purchased from Kmart and two identical tubs bought from a charity second-hand store.
He cannot tell for certain which outlet the tub with the initially recalled batch number came from.
That has left Baxter unsure what his rights are, but he believed Kmart should be involved.
“I believe there’s a wrong that needs to be righted here, I think there needs to be some accountability at the very least for this,” Baxter said.
“We’ve tried to contact them on numerous occasions but effectively we haven’t got anything back,” he said of his efforts to talk further with Kmart.
“We’ve been told that we’ll be contacted by the customer services team… we just didn’t hear back from them, so that was really frustrating.”
Baxter also wanted Kmart to provide the testing that had been done on the coloured sand products.
Kmart ‘haven’t been particularly forthcoming’ – Consumer
Baxter believed Kmart still shouldered some responsibility though his family couldn’t tell whether the affected sand was bought directly or from the charity store.
Gemma Rasmussen, Consumer’s head of research and advocacy, said Kmart “haven’t been particularly forthcoming” in its communications.
“We are disappointed with Kmart’s response in relation to what’s transpired and it does seem that they aren’t being as proactive in terms of giving shoppers guidance around what their rights are and what Kmart is owed to do,” she said.
“So we would hope that they would be a little bit more on the front foot with this.”
Under the Consumer Guarantees Act, it was the manufacturer that shouldered responsibility for a product,” Rasmussen said.
“So they could, potentially be contacting Kmart, assuming Kmart are also the manufacturer, and really looking to get a right of response and some responsibility acknowledged there,” she told RNZ.
“And I think this really highlights some of the issues that we have with our product safety laws in New Zealand,” Rasmussen said.
“I think that it’s very unsettling for shoppers to be thinking that potentially there are products on shelves that are unsafe.”
The sand was from Anko, Kmart’s in-house brand which describes itself as being “trusted by millions” and owned by Kmart Australia Ltd and part of the Kmart Group.
Kmart referred to previous statements when asked about Baxter’s case.
Baxter believed they do have responsibility.
“They need to come to the party and do what we think is the right thing to do,” he said.
“I suppose it’s a bit feeling in limbo land about some that’s, you know, your kids and your family’s safety at the end of the day.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
