90% of craft sand samples did release asbestos<\/a> into the air when played with.<\/p>\nPrivately, the New Zealand workplace regulator said it had challenged the Australian recall statements \u201cfrom the get-go\u201d as its own testing showed the asbestos fibres were of a respirable size, according to internal emails seen by the Guardian.<\/p>\n
A WorkSafe NZ spokesperson on Friday said the regulator had consistently advised that any potentially affected sand products \u201cmust be managed, removed and disposed of as friable asbestos-containing material until proven otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the \u201clow risk\u201d claim was adopted in both countries, with schools, health officials, government agencies, asbestos disease experts and other major retailers including Kmart all using the exact same wording to reassure consumers.<\/p>\n
Even though its contaminated sands were not supplied by Educational Colours in the first place, Kmart continues to claim its recalled products \u201cimportantly\u201d do not contain friable asbestos and that they are \u201clow risk\u201d unless mechanically processed.<\/p>\n
Kmart did not respond a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Asbestos, a hazardous material which can cause terminal diseases if its crystalline fibres are breathed in, has been banned in Australia since 2003 and is not allowed to be imported except in very limited circumstances.<\/p>\n
The Educational Colours risk assessment, published on 10 October 2025 and seen by the Guardian, determined the risk to children \u201cis negligible\u201d because the \u201crelease of respirable asbestos fibres from the coloured sand is unlikely to occur unless [it] is further processed by mechanical means such as crushing or pulverising\u201d.<\/p>\n
The report acknowledged the safety assurance was based solely on a discussion with an Educational Colours representative and a review of the lab results the company provided, and warned against extrapolating its findings.<\/p>\n
As the ABC first reported, an Australian laboratory found the asbestos in the sand by chance while analysing samples for staff training and machine testing \u2013 it was only reported to authorities after a lab manager mentioned it in a podcast interview.<\/p>\n
After being informed some of its products were likely contaminated, Educational Colours commissioned additional testing which found six of 14 samples contained non-respirable tremolite asbestos, documents seen by the Guardian show.<\/p>\n
The laboratory warned against making the same assumption about anything other than the samples it analysed.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the AUT test results released this month show play sand containing tremolite asbestos can release fibres into the air, even when it\u2019s only handled the way a child would, in a far more gentle manner than \u201ccrushing or pulverising\u201d.<\/p>\n
The products continued to be sold to consumers and used in schools for at least another month before they were recalled, while the company hired a Melbourne-based OHS firm to do the risk assessment.<\/p>\n
Educational Colours said it had proactively recalled its products and commissioned independent NATA-accredited testing and an occupational hygiene firm who advised the risk was negligible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe take our compliance responsibilities very seriously and remain committed to working with relevant authorities to ensure the ongoing safety of our customers and compliance with any evolving testing standards,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Officeworks relied on the report when it told consumers that there was \u201cno identifiable safety hazard\u201d relating to the contaminated products and they were being recalled \u201cpurely as a precautionary measure\u201d on 12 November 2025. Officeworks did not respond to the Guardian\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
Parents with exposed children call for transparency<\/p>\n
Christchurch parents Elle Chrisp and David Dingwall uncovered the documents using freedom of information laws after an eight-month search for answers that began when they learned their young twins had played with potentially contaminated sand.<\/p>\n
Dingwall said he was shocked when he first read the risk assessment, which was released earlier this month after a complaint to the ombudsman.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not an expert here \u2013 but even to me reading it, it felt like this was not an appropriate document to rely on for the kinds of public messaging.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple have an ongoing compensation claim against Kmart, where they bought the sand for their children, in the New Zealand disputes tribunal.<\/p>\n
After being contacted by the Guardian, the ACCC on Thursday said Kmart and Officeworks had agreed \u201cin the last 24 hours\u201d to amend their recall notices to remove the words \u201cimportantly, respirable asbestos has not been detected in any of the tested samples\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ACCC\u2019s product safety role in relation to asbestos is shared with specialist regulators,\u201d a spokesperson for the consumer watchdog said.<\/p>\n
They said the ACCC continued to \u201cactively engage\u201d with suppliers of recalled products on the wording of their recall notices.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder Australia\u2019s voluntary product safety recall system, suppliers initiate recalls and draft recall notices to be published on the ACCC product safety website,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ACCC reviews the recall notices to check that they contain a simple description of the defect and the hazard. We provide suppliers with a copy of the notice we propose to publish for review and seek their agreement to publish.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ACCC said on Monday that the federal environmental health standing committee\u2019s \u201cassessment of testing to date indicates that there is very low risk to human health from these products\u201d.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand government\u2019s product safety spokesperson, Ian Caplin, said his department had been \u201cencouraging\u201d suppliers to update their safety messaging and recall notices after the AUT test results showing contaminated sand released asbestos fibres.<\/p>\n
Caplin said that, like the ACCC, the NZ ministry in charge of consumer products (MBIE) did not write recall notices itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe final decision of what is included in the recall notice is up to the supplier,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the start, we have taken this matter very seriously. The advice from Health<\/a> New Zealand is that there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos, which is why MBIE has been actively engaging with and following up on any verifiable and positive results of asbestos in sand products.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Schools, retailers and government agencies assured parents that asbestos-contaminated play sand posed a low risk to their children\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-536910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}