Excess Rate 85%·Some Up to 805 Times
Manufacturers Continue Production Despite Awareness
Most children's slippers made in China were found to contain harmful substances exceeding the standard limits.
On the 31st, according to Hong Kong's Sing Tao Daily, China's Pengpai News purchased 50 top-selling children's slippers from the five major Chinese e-commerce platforms and 12 products from several offline stores, then requested an investigation from a testing agency.
Among the 62 products, 53 were found to contain phthalate plasticizers exceeding the standard limits. The overall exceedance rate was 85%, with one product exceeding the limit by as much as 805 times.
Phthalates are widely used as inexpensive plasticizers but can cause precocious puberty in children and may lead to infertility or autism later in life.
Among them, DEHP (Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate) is classified as a possible human carcinogen (Group 2B) by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. China regulates that the content of phthalate plasticizers such as DEHP, DBP, and BBP must not exceed 0.1%.
Manufacturers were found to have continued production despite knowing that harmful substances exceeded the standards.
One manufacturer representative told Pengpai in an interview, "If the cost is high, it won't sell, and (to meet the standards) we would have to change equipment, which is troublesome."
Another representative confessed, "We can make the labels and certificates ourselves."
Most of the failing products were produced in Wuchuan City, Guangdong Province. The plastic shoe industry, which began in the 1980s, has now become one of Wuchuan's three major industrial pillars. In 2019, Wuchuan earned the reputation as the "Capital of Plastic Shoes in China."
Currently, Wuchuan accounts for one-third of China's total plastic shoe production, with an annual production scale of 8 billion yuan (approximately 1.5 trillion KRW).
These products are also exported to regions such as Africa and the Middle East, and at one time, Wuchuan's market share in Africa reached 90%. Following the report, Wuchuan city authorities announced they would investigate the related manufacturers.
Meanwhile, the Seoul Metropolitan Government recently announced that among 22 children's products sold on Ali and Temu, China's representative low-cost e-commerce platforms, 11 products were found to contain harmful and carcinogenic substances exceeding the standard limits. Some products exceeded the limits by 300 times.
In particular, among 16 shoe decorations (Jibbitz) used to decorate children's slippers and sneakers, 7 were found to contain phthalate plasticizers exceeding the standard limits by up to 348 times.
Seoul plans to accelerate its previously announced "Consumer Safety Assurance Measures for Overseas Online Platforms." It is currently focusing on investigating the harmfulness of products sold on overseas online shopping malls and promoting consumer damage relief measures. Additionally, it will select items expected to have high demand on a monthly basis and finalize the actual inspection items through consultations with three specialized testing agencies.
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