TOYS REPLACED electrical appliances as the most high-risk products to consumers in 2006 with more notifications that ever before, according to the annual report of RAPEX, Europe’s Community Rapid Information System.
According to the report released yesterday, toys, electrical appliances and motor vehicles alone accounted for more than half of the notifications concerning possibly dangerous products in 2006.
“This is in line with the previous year’s results. The main difference is that for the first time, toys took over from electrical appliances as the product category most often notified,” the report said.
A number of dangerous consumer products were removed from the EU market last year including teddy bears, hairdryers, cleaning sprays, mini-motorbikes, cigarette lighters and ski boot bindings.
Five countries accounted for 60 per cent of the total of nearly 1,000 or so notifications and China was indicated as the country of origin of the notified product in almost half of all cases.
Germany filed 144 notifications or 16 per cent, Hungary, 140 notifications or 15 per cent, Greece 98 notifications or 11 per cent, the UK 92 notifications or 10 per cent, and Spain 79 notifications or nine per cent.
Cyprus reported around one per cent, or 12 of the 2006 notifications to RAPEX. None of the notifications concerned Cypriot products.
Toys accounted for 221 notifications or 24 per cent of the total. Electrical appliances were reported 174 times, accounting for 19 per cent of notifications and motor vehicles 14 per cent with 126 notifications. Cosmetics also featured with 48 notifications or five per cent of the total.
The products involved five main risk categories from injuries to electric shock, fire and choking or suffocation in the case of toys.
“The number of notifications relating to products presenting a serious risk has more than doubled from 388 in 2004 to 924 in 2006,” said the report.
It said that in 2006, there was an increase of 32 per cent over 2005 for serious risk notifications.
Over 40 per cent of all notifications concern voluntary measures taken by businesses, which the report said represented a considerable year-on-year increase.
“This is a clear indicator of growing safety awareness on the part of European economic operators,” RAPEX said.
It also said there was a need for some member states to improve their participation in the RAPEX system, although it did not specify which ones.
“This Rapid Alert System is a powerful watchdog and an excellent example of European value added” said European Commissioner for Consumer affairs, Meglena Kuneva, “The constant increase in the number of measures notified is a good sign, it shows that vigilance across Europe is getting better and better.
“Today’s annual report shows that the system in 2006 is working better than ever before. My task is to make it grow to its full potential.”
In January this year the EU Commission and the Chinese government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the overall objective of establishing better communication and collaboration on consumer product safety and to support Chinese authorities in their efforts to ensure product safety, in particular for consumer products exported to the EU.
??
??
??
??
