Lancashire County Council
Consumer Product Safety: Ensuring Your Wellbeing
In today's consumer-driven society, we rely on many products to enhance our lives and make daily tasks easier, more convenient and support our well-being. From lawn mowers to vacuum cleaners and from children's car seats to cosmetics, the market offers endless choices, but not all products are made equal in terms of safety.
By choosing safe and reliable products, we can avoid unnecessary accidents, injuries, and even fatalities. Consumer product safety encompasses a range of considerations, including manufacturing standards, labelling, testing, and packaging. The good news is that product safety laws exist that aim to ensure that goods available on the market are safe, reliable, and conform to the required standards. While the internet has made it very easy to get a product delivered quickly and directly to your door, if bought from a seller based outside the UK there is a chance it may not meet the standards you expect.
But there are practical steps we can all take before buying products online, from shops, new, second-hand, and even if someone is giving you an item for free. Can you see any safety markings or warnings? Are the instructions easy to understand? Can you see the address of the manufacturer or importer? If these are missing, it may not be safe to use. If you are thinking of purchasing second-hand, ask how old is it and could something have happened to it over it’s lifetime, has it been damaged which now makes it unsafe to use?
There is much we can do to safeguard our own well-being, the safety of our loved ones and our wider communities by making informed and careful purchasing decisions. Let us embrace a culture of safety and make product safety a key priority in our lives.
You can find out more about consumer product safety published by the Office for Product Safety & Standards
If you are interested in attending an online presentation or a visit to a community group (location dependent) to find out more about Consumer Product Safety contact Heather Booth at Lancashire County Council [email protected].