In recent years there has been an increase in the number of high profile recalls of UK electrical products. Some of these recalls have even hit the national news.
Now however, ESC has launched a new appliance safety campaign which aims to cover related issues in product safety design and user behaviour to help improve the process of product recall and traceability.
Even though regulations and standards in the UK are considered to be adequate, the European Rapid Alert System for notification of dangerous consumer products said that electrical goods are the third most notified product group. This combined with research which revealed that electrical product recalls have increased by 45% over the period of a year, have caused concern for the Electrical Safety Council.
Product recalls can be due to a number of factors from design flaws to misleading labelling. So ESC has been looking into product traceability and the process of recalling products in order to identify any current problems which could be improved.
One of the ways ESC are achieving this is to look at ways of gaining product registration information when goods are sold and how to ensure the public are informed that this information is vital.
However, they are also looking into the misuse of electrical goods and how to provide adequate user instructions to prevent fires and accidents occurring due to people simply not understanding the dangers they could be in by misusing appliances.
ESC have also stressed that it is important that people don’t buy cheap unbranded goods and only purchase from reputable retailers.
Written by Sara Thomson
