Australian and NZ safety assurances about asbestos in play sand were based on supplier’s own assessment

Educational Colours sand products are among those recalled over concerns that they may contain asbestos. Photograph: ACCC View image in fullscreen Educational Colours sand products are among those recalled over concerns that they may contain asbestos. Photograph: ACCC Australian and NZ safety assurances about asbestos in play sand were based on supplier’s own assessment ACCC updates some recall notices to say products ‘may cause risk to health’, contrary to previous claims Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Schools, retailers and government agencies assured parents that asbestos-contaminated play sand posed a low risk to their children’s health based on a supplier’s own assessment which was not independently verified, the Guardian can reveal. The now-contested public messaging spread quickly after a range of Educational Colours children’s sand products were pulled from shelves in November 2025 after samples were found to contain asbestos , which was followed by more than 20 similar recalls across different brands and retailers. Consumers were sold tens of thousands of boxes of potentially contaminated sand over a period of at least five years and the products were used in hundreds of schools and childcare centres in Australia and New Zealand . Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email Until this month, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) advised toxic asbestos fibres were “unlikely” to be released into the air unless the sand was “processed by mechanical means such as crushing or pulverising”. Contaminated children’s play sand sold in Australia can release toxic airborne asbestos, research finds Read more This advice originated from a risk assessment that Educational Colours itself commissioned, which did not involve any additional testing or even a visual inspection of the contaminated products, and was never made public. The supplier’s safety claim became the official position of the Australian and New Zealand governments even though they had no additional evidence to support it. Airborne fibres found in 90% of samples The ACCC updated some of its recall notices last week to state the products “may cause a risk to health”, after testing by the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) found 90% of craft sand samples did release asbestos into the air when played with. Privately, the New Zealand workplace regulator said it had challenged the Australian recall statements “from the get-go” as its own testing showed the asbestos fibres were of a respirable size, according to internal emails seen by the Guardian. A WorkSafe NZ spokesperson on Friday said the regulator had consistently advised that any potentially affected sand products “must be managed, removed and disposed of as friable asbestos-containing material until proven otherwise.” Nevertheless, the “low risk” claim was adopted in both countries, with schools, health officials, government agencies, asbestos disease experts and other major ret