More than half of 26 randomly selected toys for pets sold in Taipei and New Taipei City were not properly labeled, while seven presented a choking hazard, the Consumers’ Foundation said yesterday, as it urged the government to set standards for pet toys.
To get an idea of the safety of pet toys, which are not regulated by specific laws in Taiwan, the foundation in December randomly selected 26 toys, including rubber balls, cat teaser wands and dental chew toys, from several pet shops to inspect.
The toys were examined to see if they conformed to the Commodity Labeling Act (商品標示法), as well as national standards for the safety of children’s toys and children’s products, Consumers’ Foundation chairman Terry Huang (黃怡騰) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
The foundation found that 16 of the toys did not properly identify the name of the toy and its materials, or provide information on when, where and by which company it was manufactured.
This included five toys that did not have any labeling at all, the foundation said in its report.
Under the Commodity Labeling Act, local governments should inform manufacturers when they fail to properly label their products and set a deadline for manufacturers to rectify the issue.
Failure to do so can result in repeated fines of NT$20,000 to NT$200,000.
There were also seven toys that presented a choking hazard, while a toy shaped like a bone was found to have excessive amounts of plasticizers, the report said.
Nearly a quarter of the toy’s composition (22.9 percent) was diisononyl phthalate, well above the national standard for children’s toys, which allows no more than a 0.1 percent concentration of eight types of plasticizers combined, the report said.
A similar report produced by the foundation in 2016 found that only 12 percent (three out of 25) of pet toy products had proper labeling, compared with 38.5 percent (10 out of 26) in the new report, Huang said.
This shows that pet toy manufacturers still are not familiar with labeling regulations, which needs to be improved immediately, Huang said.
He also called on the government to establish standards for pet toys, as statistics show that the number of pets in Taiwan could reach a record high 3 million this year.
The foundation advised owners to choose toys that are the right size for their pets to prevent choking and to stop using toys when they begin to fall apart.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
RSS