Source: Radio New Zealand
Parents have been alarmed after a variety of sand products for children were recalled, over asbestos fears. Supplied
How to shop for your kids this Christmas, in the wake of the asbestos-contaminated sand, toy recalls, and children’s products failing safety tests
After a string of headlines about toy recalls, including kinetic sand contaminated with asbestos, shopping for the kids this year seems harder than ever.
And with the cost of living sky-high, it can be tempting to turn to cheap international e-commerce sites. But Gemma Rasmussen, Consumer NZ’s head of research and advocacy, has one piece of advice on that: don’t.
“We would say don’t buy from these cheaper online marketplaces like Temu and Shein. I get that cost of living is really tough and there might be other things you want to buy from there, but when it comes to kids’ products, don’t do it.
“There’s a really high failure rate in safety testing and we don’t think it’s worth the risk.”
But as we’ve seen with the asbestos-contaminated sand from Kmart, just because it’s purchased in New Zealand doesn’t automatically mean it’s safe.
“There is a massive trust model in New Zealand and how effective that is, is questionable,” says Rasmussen.
“We are relying on the honesty of suppliers and a lot of our standards are voluntary.”
There are various laws in New Zealand to protect consumers: The Fair Trading Act, the Consumer Guarantees Act, and “we have specific mandatory product safety standards for higher risk product categories, and this is things like toys, children’s nightwear, cots, things like that, and that’s because there has been this historic risk in this space.”
But when it comes to actually enforcing some of these standards, products can fall through the cracks.
“Often it’s that the enforcement and recall is happening once something’s landed on our shelves, so we’re sort of in a model where until something goes wrong there’s not really a lot that’s happening and that’s quite a dangerous model because it means potentially someone is getting hurt.”
“In short our government hasn’t prioritised putting the resources into ensuring that we actually have a system that is really reflective of the retail experience in New Zealand.”
She says the EU is the leader in this space.
“They’re sort of trying to create a marketplace where the guardrails are on and there’s the assumption that the shopper can really shop with safety.
“They have things like government certification schemes, they’ve expanded what chemicals are regulated, they have a greater focus on imports and online marketplace surveillance and they really have a focus on traceability.”
She says that means when a product that has a problem is identified, it’s easily trackable and can be recalled.
“I think that we [in New Zealand] really do need to be taking it far more seriously. I see risk on our horizon with the way that our marketplace is now operating. I think in the instance of the asbestos sand, it is disappointing to see that the buck has been passed a little bit.”
Beyond the laws, reputational damage and the resulting economic risk may be a bigger force for keeping retailers in line.
“It’s not good business practice for a retailer to do whatever they want because of the reputational risk they face if something does go wrong.”
“With this kinetic sand asbestos issue, what really surprised me was that it was a retailer like Kmart because often these really big retailers have quite rigorous systems because they know that the reputational and economic risk is so major to them.”
While it’s impossible to completely avoid risk, Rasmussen says that products like slimes, sands, dough and face paints are likely to carry more risk. (Consumer NZ has previously tested face paint, which contained lead.)
In this episode of The Detail, Rasmussen explains the laws designed to protect us, and why they’re not fit for purpose, and Mareta Hunt from Safekids Aotearoa spells out the ‘Six S’s’ to look out when shopping for toys – size, surface, string, supervision, sound and swallow.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
