Appliance safety issues highlighted

Through electrical safety testing, the fresh-keeping performance is excellent, and the product is energy-saving and silent... Is it possible that a refrigerator can be said to be of good quality? You may not expect that the answer is negative, because plastic materials such as shelves inside may be “toxic”. With the growing variety of kitchen appliances, the safety issues of its materials are also becoming increasingly prominent. A few days ago, reporters learned that relevant professional organizations are exploring innovative product quality evaluation models.

Material security haunts consumers

Recently, the Food Contact Materials Laboratory of the Changzhou Inspection and Quarantine Bureau detected a batch of “toxic” imported food contact parts for refrigerators, and immediately returned them for processing. In this batch of accessories from Korea, the inspectors found that the acrylonitrile monomer residue of the refrigerator partition exceeded the standard by nearly 4 times. Acrylonitrile is a highly toxic suspected carcinogen, and each country has strict regulations on its content or migration in food contact materials.

It is understood that this batch of separators is made of acrylonitrile copolymer plastic for food packaging. As acrylonitrile can be slowly volatilized and released in plastics, China and the United States and other countries have stipulated that their monomer residues should not exceed 11 mg/kg. However, public attention to such food contact products has been limited to plastic cups, plastic tableware, etc., and there has been little attention to refrigerator accessories. In fact, the refrigerator will also affect the direct entrance of food in use, for example, many families will directly store fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator, in the summer to make salad dishes, small desserts will be placed in the refrigerator before the ice. If the interior parts of the refrigerator contain volatile toxic and harmful substances, the food becomes the “activated carbon” that adsorbs them.

With the increasing abundance of household electrical appliances, daily life such as daily necessities and household appliances are more and more closely related to household appliances, but the safety issues of household electrical appliances that have burst out, especially the material safety of kitchen electrical products that come into contact with food, make consumers At the same time enjoying this convenience, my heart is somewhat unsteady.

In the field of home appliances, the safety issue of the inner material of drinking fountains first entered the field of vision. The industrial and commercial and quality supervision departments around the country have all found that excessive levels of heavy metals in the liner have been found in the quality testing of drinking fountains. For example, Beijing Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce entrusted the Beijing Municipal Physical and Chemical Analysis and Testing Center to conduct quality monitoring on the water dispenser liners sold in the city and found that there were excessive levels of heavy metal in the interior of the two samples.

Afterwards, the uproaring bisphenol A in the plastic milk bottle market has also caused many household electrical appliance consumers to worry. At that time, many consumers asked the newspaper whether plastic kettles, coffee pots and soya-bean milk makers could continue to be purchased and used. Because “the use temperature of plastic bottles is only 40°C-50°C, and the use temperature of plastic electric kettles is as high as 100°C. If it contains bisphenol A, isn't the risk greater?”

In addition, CCTV broke the "purple sand" incident, soymilk lubricant problems and Supor electric pressure cooker liner manganese and many other issues such as the spearhead all pointed to product material safety.

There is still a blind spot in production supervision

Dong Jinshi, deputy director of the International Food Packaging Association, told reporters that according to food hygiene regulations formulated by China and Europe, the United States, Japan and other countries, products and materials in contact with food are food containers and packaging materials, including direct or indirect food contact. Containers, packaging materials and coatings, pipelines, machinery and other facilities and equipment. All countries have mandatory legal provisions for the health indicators of food packaging materials and containers. For PC materials, China is currently implementing the "Hygienic Standard for Polycarbonate Resin Molded Products Used in Food Containers and Packaging Materials" issued in 1994, and it has limits on residual monomers and volatiles such as heavy metals, vinyl chloride, and styrene. There are also restrictions on bisphenol A, but it is not required to explicitly label the product.

The reporter saw relevant hints on the official website of the General Administration of Customs. Some home appliances exported for food processing suffered a return, because their plastic parts did not meet the relevant local health indicators. It is worth noting that after the EU issued the RoHS directive on electrical and electronic products in 2003, many domestic appliance companies began to pay attention to the detection of hazardous substances in raw materials, but the purpose of the RoHS directive was to reduce and prevent the impact of electronic and electrical waste on the environment. Pollution, its definition of the concept of harmful substances and limit indicators are different from the food packaging materials, so the materials tested in accordance with the RoHS directive may not be suitable for food packaging. Among the products whose exports were rejected, there were examples of harmful substances such as formaldehyde and styrene that were caused by the use of phenolic plastics and ABS plastics.

National Institute of Electrical Appliances Quality Supervision and Inspection Center director of electric heating equipment Ling Honghao told reporters that the current national standards for household appliances are mostly only the product's electrical safety performance is limited, but the material is not made explicit requirements, so the quality inspection department on the material There is a corresponding difficulty in supervision. On May 1, 2009, GB/T 22090-2008 "Hot and Cold Water Dispenser" standards began to be implemented. Compared with the industry recommended standards used in the past, the changes in the standard were mainly on the requirements of parts and components, and the drinking fountains were specially proposed. Bili physical and chemical indicators test. However, for the inspection and supervision of plastic parts, the quality supervision department or related health department shall be responsible for the relevant standards for plastic food containers.

The staff of the National Quality Inspection Center for Plastics told reporters that they are mainly responsible for testing food packaging plastic films and various plastic packaging barrels, and are not responsible for the qualification of household electrical appliances.

Innovative product quality evaluation model to be established

Hu Xiaohong, head of the Information Department of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, pointed out that in 2012, the production of small kitchen appliances was about 800 million units. China’s kitchen appliances continued to rise in the global export market, and the kitchen was the most concentrated and most frequently used electrical product in residential areas. A large number of kitchen appliances, such as blenders, juicers, soya-bean milk makers, induction cookers, electric pressure cookers, broilers, electric ovens, toasters, toasters, and coffee makers, have entered Chinese homes.

In the small household appliance industry, China currently implements the 3C certification licensing system, focusing on the electrical safety of such products. However, frequent food safety incidents have caused more and more consumers to pay attention to food safety while also paying attention to the use of small home appliances used in food processing. Responsible kitchen appliance manufacturers are also aware that the safe use of food contact materials is critical to the health of consumers and the sustainable development of the company.

Babies' home appliances have higher requirements for product quality because of the special nature of their use. More and more consumers are beginning to realize the importance of material safety. Haier, who had recently entered the field, introduced stainless steel materials for the first time, and used food-grade stainless steel and high-temperature resistant glass to replace traditional plastic materials. Jiuyang Co., Ltd. signed a contract with the Shandong Provincial Quality Supervision, Inspection and Research Institute to conduct kitchen appliance product safety assessment project.

Wang Weishan, director of the National Packaging Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, said that the following factors should be taken into consideration in the safety assessment: the production process of the product, the raw and auxiliary materials used, the testing items and testing conditions stipulated by the Chinese product standards, and the testing items of foreign products of the same type. And test conditions, the actual conditions of use of the product, the specific conditions of use, etc., to develop a reasonable and scientific risk assessment program.

Zhang Yachen, deputy chief engineer of the China Household Electrical Appliances Research Institute, pointed out that product qualification does not represent health, nor does it mean safety. As an enterprise, it has the responsibility and obligation to conduct risk assessments on new materials and accessories used in advance. Electrical safety is only one aspect of home appliance safety. A new method of evaluating the safety of kitchen appliances needs to be implemented by consumers under normal conditions of use. The food they make is safe and reliable. He said that the hospital proposed a product quality evaluation model - product evaluation system. Among them, consumers' needs and complaints are the evaluation criteria, consumers' habits and consumer trends are the focus of attention, and product differentiation characteristics are the goal of discovering and interpreting products. In order to guide consumers and service companies for the purpose of comfort and convenience The four dimensions of sexuality, practicality, and practicality make use of the evaluation methods of professional knowledge and professional skills.

Not long ago, more than 50 experts from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the National Standardization Administration, the National Certification and Accreditation Regulatory Commission, the National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the China Quality Certification Center, and testing institutions from across the country participated in The first seminar on kitchen appliance product safety assessment organized by the China Household Electrical Appliances Association showed that the kitchen appliances industry has actively explored material safety and food safety issues beyond product safety.

Xu Dongsheng, secretary-general of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, said that for the framework of product safety requirements, the current standards are all available, but many new issues and more detailed rules still need to be improved. At the same time, in the past, there was a problem of multi-managing supervision on this issue, and it was inevitable that there was a regulatory blind spot. He disclosed that the current multi-sector regulatory body is being formed and relevant standards are being cleared. The establishment of a new product safety model has been put on the agenda.