– There is no big health risk in having individual products with prohibited substances at home, but the total quantity of hazardous chemicals used in many different types of goods may, in the long term cause health and environmental problems, ” says Frida Ramström, inspector at the Swedish chemicals agency, in a press release.
researched content in toys, jewelry and electronics which have been traded from online stores based in the uk, in other EUROPEAN union countries and in countries outside the EU. In 40 of the 106 products were detected banned chemical substances above the limit values in the legislation.
the Proportion of the products with banned substances was greatest among products from e-commerce companies outside the EU: 43%. The corresponding figure for the goods from e-retailers in other EU countries was 23 per cent and among the goods from the Swedish e-retailers contained 35% banned substances.
The most common deficiency of the goods was the lead in lödningarna in the electronics gadgets. For toys, it was most common with illegal levels of phthalates, a substance used to make plastic soft which are suspected to be endocrine disruptors. Among the jewelry were often excessively high levels of cadmium, which can damage the kidneys and the skeleton.
also tested the twelve mobile phone charger as the national electrical safety board purchased from the ecommerce site Wish and that had serious deficiencies regarding electrical safety. The test showed that all the chargers contained lead in high concentrations and two of them contained cadmium.
the investigation is based on sampling and are not statistically significant. But the Swedish chemicals agency considers that the result demonstrates that the goods that are traded from companies outside the EU more often at risk to contain prohibited substances.
the Swedish chemicals agency therefore calls on consumers to think about which companies you buy from to avoid getting hazardous substances in goods from the international e-commerce.
– For that we should be able to achieve a toxic-free everyday life and a non-toxic environment need to share the goods with hazardous substances, reduce, ” says Frida Ramström in a statement.
also to traders as well need to take greater responsibility for delivering safe products to its customers and to regulatory authorities within and outside the EU need to become better at working in order to increase the safety of the product.