Millions of unsafe home electrical products that could cause death or injury by fire or electrocution are in use in UK homes, warns new research by the Electrical Safety Council (ESC).
The response to product recall warnings is pitifully low, as consumers appear indifferent to warnings of fire or electric shock, or underestimate the danger from the everyday electrical products, such as televisions, hair straighteners, or even baby monitors, in their homes. They have become used to having them on tap and are reluctant to part with them, even if they have been contacted two or three times by the manufacturer.
According to the research, two million people have deliberately ignored product recall notices, with one million more admitting to currently owning an electrical item that has been recalled. A third of respondents find it too inconvenient to return faulty products, while a fifth refuse to forgo them.
The ESC found that the average success rate of a typical product recall is a paltry 10 to 20 percent. Given the 266 electrical product recalls made in the last six years, and the fact that manufacturers often produce hundreds of thousands of each item, there are likely to be millions of dangerous products threatening safety every day.
Recalled products have caused deaths, severe injury, and damage to property. The majority of recalls in 2012 for household appliances were because the items were at risk for catching fire or causing electrocution.
Recall checker
The ESC says that retailers and manufacturers need to do more to aid customer awareness. Meanwhile, the charity is launching an online tool so users can quickly and easily discover if they own a defective electrical product. The database enables users to check whether the products they own have been recalled via the model number, brand name, or description. If the product has been recalled, the website will give advice on what to do next.
The Daily Telegraph reports that almost half a million potentially dangerous dishwashers are still being used despite fire risks because owners cannot be traced.
More than 600,000 faulty Bosch dishwashers, made over a seven-year period, are at risk of catching fire, but only one in four has been traced, despite a product alert by Bosch in July 2011.
Hundreds of fires involving these dishwashers, with more than a dozen blazes deemed serious, have occurred over the last few years. Owners are urged to use the machines only under controlled situations and not to leave them unattended.
Global risk
Despite the new ESC website, there is no single official source responsible for all recall information in the UK.
If this sorry state of affairs is the case in the UK, what is the situation in other countries? Hopefully, they are doing better than the UK in alerting and persuading consumers to remove the risk of such obvious danger from fire.
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