The Health and Safety Authority launches inspection campaign focusing on liquid laundry detergent capsules.
Monday 9th May - The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) has today launched an inspection campaign targeting retailers and distributers of liquid laundry detergent capsules, generally known as “liquitabs”.
The aim of the campaign is to ensure that all of these products, in soluble packaging, comply with additional EU-wide safety measures, which came into full effect on 1st of January 2016.
The new legal requirements cover both the outer packaging and the inner soluble capsules. They were first introduced by the European Commission in December 2014 in response to the high number of exposures involving young children reported to poisons centres across Europe.
A transitional period up to 31st of December 2015 was put in place for products already on the market and to allow manufacturers, distributors and retailers time to comply with the change in regulations.
In the last five years, in Ireland, there have been over 900 incidents involving liquitabs reported to the National Poisons Information Centre at Beaumount Hospital. The majority of these involved children less than three years old.
The HSA is the competent authority for enforcing these regulations in Ireland. Yvonne Mullooly, Senior Inspector with the HSA outlined the changes and what is required of retailers.
“These products are small and colourful, so children can mistake these capsules for toys or sweets. Changes to the labelling and packaging regulations were introduced to make it more difficult for children to see and access the product and prevent accidental exposure. We are now asking all retailers and distributors to check their existing stock to make sure what they have on their shelves is compliant as all non-compliant stock should be removed.”
Since the 1st of January 2016, all liquitab products sold on the EU market must comply with the new additional safety measures and the manufacturers have been made aware of this.
For more information see; http://www.hsa.ie/eng/Your_Industry/Chemicals/Detergents/Liquid_Laundry_Detergent_Capsules/Liquitabs.html
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