DC played with recalled asbestos sand

[AsbestosWorriez]

Just got an email from Hobbycraft and we purchased a box with the exact product code that has been recalled. The sand is the first thing the kids played with, we made some artwork and it went everywhere.

I have health anxiety at the best of times and am in complete bits. I feel I have failed my children.

If anyone has some more level headed information please let me know, there is really little information given but it says to dispose of with gloves and a mask which is so worrying.

The advice says "If the sand has been used, clean-up sites where the product was used using wet cloths to avoid generating dust. Wear gloves and a mask. Double bag the sand, gloves, mask and cloths."

I honestly know nothing about any.of this, but I can tell you a story.

I am a child of the 60s. I had always wanted a fancy Wendy House like my friend had. When my Dad was renovating our living room and took out the fireplace and boiler there was a wonderful sheet of white, board like stuff with a hole, just the right size for a small child to use as a door. The was attached to Mum's 3 sided clothes horse and made a little play house for me. I loved it. I was in and out of the playhouse 100 times a day, brushing against the sides of the door and flaking off the fibres.

I am sure you realise this was asbestos.

I am now 64 and have had, as yet, no issues.

So.please try to keep.your anxiety at bay. I know it's difficult but as yet, nothing bad has happened.

Take care.

Half the mums on here will have had this stuff at some point, I know we have. I was a bit shocked to read it but realistically there's nothing to be done and it's probably fine. You'll drive yourself mad worrying about it for the next fifty years.

Hi OP, we also had this box. I’m 70-80% sure I threw the sand out (we lived in a carpeted flat at the time so didn’t really allow sand or play doh etc) but that was a couple of years ago so I can’t specifically recall.

If it helps, I’ve established the following:

1. The asbestos content was very small - 0.1% at most. We know this because they describe ‘trace’ amounts - the limit for it to be deemed ‘trace’ in the UK is 0.1%. Trading standards have said if found we can throw it away in household waste - again, by law anything more than 0.1% asbestos has to be disposed of by specialists, so the test result must be below this threshold.
2. Australia and New Zealand recently had the same scare - play sand contaminated by trace amounts. They ran tests and established there were no respiratory fibres released during ordinary play with the sand (hopefully that would be the same with this).
3. Asbestos related illnesses are dose dependent - out of people who worked heavily and directly with it over many years, 90% did not go on to develop serious illness. While no exposure is ‘safe’ (like with cigarette smoke for example), the exposure here is considered to be very low.

I will also paste a quote from a leading consultant in asbestos related lung disease from one of the Australia articles:

Prof Fraser Brims, a consultant respiratory physician at Sir Charles Gairdner hospital and director at Curtin University Medical School, said the ACCC was correct in saying the risk to children was low.
“Any exposure to asbestos and all of its forms is definitely undesirable, but there is a really important message that the risk of developing asbestos-related diseases is dose-related, and so [with] very low exposures, which is what no doubt is the case with this sand, the risk is unmeasurably low,” Brims said.
Brims said the states’ decisions whether or not to close schools came down to “their own interpretations of safety and risk”.

The above is taken from the Guardian.

So while obviously any exposure should be avoided, please don’t worry yourself sick.

Please don’t panic. Whilst certainly not good the reality is that asbestos is around us far more than you’d realise. A lot of schools and other public buildings.. lots of flats of a certain age. Garages of older houses. Etc Issues arise when it’s breathed in. Smoking is known to make risk miles higher but not sure anyone knows why. Some people can get massively exposed and never suffer. Others the opposite

I have phoned Hobbycraft today and their response was terrible - no information and shirty. She wouldn't say what type of asbestos, how much, or if they are doing further testing

I think Hobbycraft have been disgraceful. Their initial reaction was to say there was no evidence of anyone being harmed, which is nonsensical in the context of asbestos where any harm will take decades to emerge. It just seemed like they had no understanding of the issue at all.

Please try not to worry. I'm a teacher in Australia and we had to throw away all sand products last year. The advice was that we were doing so with an abundance of caution. My understanding is that the risk of a problem is when the sand is pulverised - as in by industrial machinery, not by playing with hands / plastic tools.

some batches showed trace amounts in testing - of some batches of some brands over some time scales, the world over. Many batches were tested and fine.

And even those with trace amounts could only be a problem if crushed by machinery and inhaled again and again over a long period.

I was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma at age 21, caused by small asbestos fibres and not repeatedly exposed to it. It's very rare, but it does happen!

the risk to children who played with the sand is thought to be low.

This is where to focus. The world is full of things that can be harmful in the wrong quantity, time or place. Just being alive in this world as a human is inherantly a risk, there is no way to remove them all and you wouldn't want to. There are substances, and happenings at every turn which could harm, you have absolutely not failed your children.

Bin it, wash your hands, and book in a few appointments with whoever you're getting support from for your OCD and health anxiety.

I know this is all so worrying but please try not to panic. We were gifted lots of posh sand pots at Christmas and I don’t know if they were made in China or not, so I’m going to throw them out and replace with proper kinetic sand (the brand) which is European and so is asbestos free, whereas Chinese regulators allow up to 5% tolerance for asbestos. But in all my reading about it, it seems to be especially low risk because the reason the play sand pours like it does is because it has silicon in it to make it ‘sticky’, and the silicon means the asbestos particles can’t easily become airborne, which is where the risk lies. Dispose of it and try not to worry, the risks are minuscule.

That’s awful. How are you now? I recall a poster doing an AMA a couple of years ago - was that you? If so, really glad you seem to be stable.

Thank you, the stickiness makes sense for kinetic sand but this is not what was in the hobbycraft box. It was normal sand, just coloured. But quantities much smaller than if playing with kinetic sand, so I guess that's always something.

So sorry to hear. Do you know what the source of it was? I hope you are doing ok

Yes unfortunately I read that they are well within their rights to do this. Since Brexit, UK legislation is that if there is no proof of harm, they don't need to do a thing unfortunately. Super convenient in this case where it would be decades before effects become obvious....

I was thinking of calling too, I won't bother then...

Yes that was me! Thank you :) still stable now x

That’s great news! So happy for you xx

I’m really sorry to hear this, and glad you’re doing well now. But yes, that’s why I deliberately said “almost all” - a case like yours is vanishingly rare, and the chances of the OP’s child being harmed by exposure to this sand, which would not have involved inhalable fibres, remain infinitesimally small.

If it helps OP, when I was at school in the late 70s, we had mats for our chemistry Bunsen burners , made of asbestos. Pretty much all of us would gouge this with a biro, pick at it etc etc. Also at the time asbestos was in Artex, in filler for holes in walls etc, in ceiling tiles, sheds, ropes for Aga lids, all sorts of stuff. The big risk as pp says, is working with Asbestos for a long time.
So try not to worry .

I think call - you never know, you might get someone more helpful and it shows there's pressure on them to give information. Good luck!

Any parent goes out of their mind with worry over their child's safety so your reaction is natural. But you haven't failed your child. The recall will be from an abundance of caution, your little one won't have suffered any long term problems. Just follow the instructions and try to put it out of your head. 💐

I work in asbestos risk management and honestly I would not be concerned by this at all. This is an incredibly low risk situation with minimal exposure, the likelihood of any asbestos related disease to come from this is miniscule.

Asbestos is a big scary word to a lot of people and yes, it is dangerous. However a lot of us interact with asbestos daily, it is still in many homes, offices, gardens. Prolonged, confined space exposure is the main concern and the reason why a lot of miners and construction workers deal with asbestos related illness. General one off minor interactions are rarely of concern unless snorting it like cocaine.

It’s precautionary, the chance of it being dangerous is very minimal but they prefer to recall than that tiny tiny chance . Return it bagged up for a refund

Would you be not concerned if we've had it in the house? I'm just worried it's everywhere and I can't clean it because I can't see the fibres?