Parent alert: Fake loom bands may contain dangerous chemicals.
A popular fashion accessory could affect your child’s health.
EXPERTS warn that the new loom band bracelet – a craze that is sweeping the world, including Zululand – may contain chemicals that could be dangerous to a child’s health.
The ZOs sister newspaper, the South Coast Herald reported that counterfeit bags of the bands and charms were intercepted en route from the Far East to the UK and found to contain dangerous levels of phthalates (substances added to plastics to increase their flexibility, transparency, durability and longevity).
The legal limit for phthalates is 0.1 percent but some of the loom bands and charms contain 50 percent which can damage DNA and also cause reproductive problems.
Safety officials in the United Kingdom are warning parents to ensure that the bands and charms they purchase for their children carry a ‘CE’ mark, conforming to EU standards, on the packaging.
When it comes to the risks they pose, it’s a question of how long you are exposed to them. If you touched and played with a toy containing phthalates for ten minutes, it probably would not pose a danger.
However, children are making these loom bands into bracelets and wearing them for long periods and so often, there is direct skin contact 24 hours a day for several weeks.
Children’s skins absorb toxins more easily than does that of adults and parents are warned not to allow children to put the bands into their mouths.
