Child goods from Chinese online platform found to contain excessive hazardous substances

Children's bicycles sold here by Chinese online platform AliExpress have been found to contain a hazardous substance exceeding the South Korean standard by about 260 times, the Seoul city government said Wednesday. The city government said it has conducted a safety examination on 16 kinds of children's products sold on AliExpress, such as inline skates, kickboards, bicycles, glasses and sunglasses, and half of them were found to contain hazardous substances exceeding domestic standards or were not durable enough. An inspection of two child bike models from the Chinese platform found that the seat from one of them contained phthalate plasticizers exceeding the allowable level by 258 times, the government noted. Phthalate plasticizers are endocrine disruptors that can affect reproductive function and cause eye or skin irritation upon contact. In the other bike product, the level of phthalate plasticizers exceeded the domestic standards by 240 times, while about 1.5 times the permissible level of lead was de tected in the plastic part of the bell, it added. In addition, two models of inline skates were found to contain excessive amounts of phthalate plasticizers and cracked and broke during performance tests, the city government said. Source: Yonhap News Agency