Business

Australia Assesses Need For Further Hazardous Dyes Regulation

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has started assessing whether the country requires further regulation to deal with the potential dangers associated with hazardous dyes in clothing and textile articles. The ACCC says the assessment was made at the request of the Minister for Small Business, Bruce Billson after a small number of common clothing and textile goods tested by the commission were found to contain "unacceptable concentrations of certain azo dyes", which are known to break down to carcinogenic compounds called aromatic amines.

The organisation says around 97% of the 199 articles surveyed were found to be within what it considers to be the acceptable limits of 30mg/kg of total aromatic amines. Suppliers of products found to exceed the acceptable limit have taken action and ceased supply of the affected stock, and so far initiated 12 voluntary recalls involving 37 product lines and almost 208,000 items. The articles affected by the recalls are all manufactured overseas and the problem seems to have arisen from the unauthorised substitution of dyes early in the manufacturing process, according to the ACCC.

It says that Australian retailers have generally advised their suppliers not to use these dyes and, if they do, to use the European Union limits or lower. "While the European Union has regulations, other countries, such as Canada have chosen not to regulate these chemicals," it points out. However, the organisation notes that although many suppliers have systems in place to manage the possibility of the wrong dyes being used by manufacturers overseas, it is possible for cheaper dyes to be substituted somewhere in the production process.