Crayola recalled in UK as asbestos alert spreads to 30 toys
Crayola is among the children’s toys recalled in the UK after play sand sold by Hobbycraft was found to contain asbestos, adding to more than 30 recalls over the past three months. Retailers including Tesco, Primark, Matalan and M&S have withdrawn products ranging from candle-making kits to stretchy rubber toys.
The recalls matter because the affected items were already on sale in shops and online, and the UK prohibits asbestos in any quantity. Which? said the pace of recalls points to a serious failure in safety checks, while campaigners said the alerts have come from individual testing by manufacturers and sellers, not from UK authorities.
Hobbycraft play sand
In January, reported that Hobbycraft had withdrawn its Giant Box of Craft kits after a customer alerted it to asbestos traces in the bottles of coloured sand. Hobbycraft said UK authorities had not warned of a risk and there was no evidence of harm to customers.
Two days after that exposé, Hobbycraft issued a national recall of the craft box and later recalled four further craft sets containing sand. Customers were instructed to seal the contaminated bottles in double bags and seek council advice on disposal.
Which? safety checks
Sue Davies, Which? head of consumer protection policy, said: “The Office for Product Safety and Standards needs to take action and ensure proper checks are being carried out to keep dangerous products off the shelves,” and “It should also examine whether toys containing asbestos are being sold on online marketplaces where there is far more limited regulation.”
She said the number of recalls in the last three months pointed to a serious failure in safety checks. Products that had been certified as safe were later found to be contaminated when they were sent for the more reliable type of test.
Laurie Kazan-Allen
Laurie Kazan-Allen of the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat said: “It took an article in to force the UK authorities to engage with the potential threat to public health,” and “The UK recalls since then are a result of individual tests carried out by manufacturers and sellers and not of testing by the UK authorities.”
The sand is thought to come from mines in China where asbestos fibres can occur naturally and where labelling rules are less rigorous. The Office for Product Safety and Standards later issued an advisory note for traders about the most reliable tests, and labs have reported a surge in requests from stores and manufacturers.
Similar products remained on sale in high street stores and online platforms in the UK and Europe, even after contaminated play sand had already prompted government recalls and the closure of schools and nurseries in Australia and New Zealand in November. That leaves shoppers checking labels and recall notices for products that may have been on shelves before the latest wave of withdrawals.
