How clean are your cleaning products?
With product recalls being made on Dettol and Domestos, perhaps now is the time to make the change to natural cleaning products. I mean, if you can't trust the product you buy - what can you trust?
With its slogan that it kiils up to 99.9% of household germs, the Brit -produced product was declared unsafe for use after SA's National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications performed testing and found the brand wasn't living up to it's promises, resulting in over 4000 units being recalled.
"It fails to meet our requirements, and as such we urge the public not to use the product. In instances where the safety and health of consumers may be affected, we issue a consumer alert to say such a product is under recall and it's not advisable for you to use it. We issue a specific number (on any product) to indicate that it meets our requirements and is safe for use - this product has not met such requirements," says NCRS spokesperson, Thomas Madzivhe.
Dettol SA, on the other hand says that the products in question were illegally imported into the country by a third-party trader with no connection to the company, and that their products are safe to use.
A similar shocker,
8000 Domestos products have also been pulled so far, but for adminitrative reason, not safety ones. In a press release, Domestos SA said "...disinfectant products need to be registered with the NRCS before they can be sold on shelf, however in this case a local retailer imported the product directly from the UK and hence the recall of the product.
"In South Africa, Unilever manufactures and markets Domestos Thick Bleach. This local product is registered with the NRCS and is compliant with South African Regulations. There is no consumer safety issue with this product, the only issue is that all such products should be registered with the relevant local authorities before they are sold locally."
It seems that third-party retailers are at fault here, but will this affect the cleaning products we buy?