The National Consumer Institute in Spain has analyzed more than 400 school products to determine their legality. 61.5% of school material has defects, which at the time of return to school leaves us with many doubts.
Luckily, most of the infractions are related, not with the safety in the use of school supplies, but with labeling defects, and that 95% of the 271 defective products do not comply with what is required by the regulations regarding labelled.
The labels of the material, in 31% of the cases the person responsible for the product is not indicated; 23% do not show special indications or mandatory warnings; and in 15% the marking is not specified.
Regarding the remaining 5%, defects in school material are related to factors that do involve risks, like 2% of the products that present non-compliances in chemical contamination, especially barium.
Another 2% do not meet the requirements in quality factors, almost all due to the presence of dirt. Finally, 1% is defective due to safety factors inherently in the material used.
And although the figures that involve risks are not high, the fact that both labeling is irregular can disorient us as consumers, especially in these dates in which, who more and less, seeks to renew school supplies for the return to school.
I am also concerned in this regard the material that we do not buy directly, that which is already in school.
My oldest daughter starts this year in Early Childhood Education, and although I hope to know your classroom and with what you will play and work in class, I will hardly know if the waxes you use to paint, for example, are safe. Although well thought out I do not know if the ones I buy in the supermarket are, no matter how much I look at the labels.
Anyway, they are concerns that I think that any parent, especially first-timers like me in this school subject, may worry.
And of course, know that more than half of the school material presents some type of defectIt does not help to have confidence, not only in what we have at home, but in what they use in school.
