A ‘test’ on Halloween products has revealed alarming results as just three of the 49 items looked at met the safety requirements.
Commerce minister Tony Buti and Consumer Protection Commissioner Trish Blake spoke out about the dangerous issue of button batteries on Saturday as they revealed three children had died nationally in recent years from ingesting them which had prompted changes to regulations in 2022.
Button batteries warning as Halloween draws near.Credit: Consumer Protection WA
However, in the lead up to Halloween Consumer Protection decided to look at a randomly selected number of products sold across six major online shopping platforms aimed at children and found the majority were not up to scratch.
Nearly 80 per cent of the items inspected failed safety standards, including unsecured battery compartments that allowed button batteries to be easily accessed, posing a serious risk to young children.
This safety failure was identified across a range of product types, including costume accessories, skeleton candlesticks, spider tea lights, pumpkin tote bags and flashing finger rings.
In one case, button batteries had dislodged from a Halloween light during transit and were discovered loose inside the packaging upon delivery.
Almost all items were missing mandatory warning labels alerting consumers to the presence of button batteries, which can cause life-threatening injuries if swallowed.
“Halloween is becoming a very important calendar event for retailers and also for people each year, so the department decided to do a bit of a test on to see regard to the safety of Halloween products, particularly button batteries,” Buti said.
“So they purchased 49 button battery items from sits online platforms, and it was very concerning what they found, only three of the 49 products met the safety requirements that have become mandatory since 2022 so the safety and information standards, only three of the 49 products purchased met those standards.”
