Irish Health and Safety Authority cracks down on detergent pods.

[iej]

Interesting to see that the HSA here in Ireland is beginning to actually inspect stores to ensure that they are compliant with new rules on detergent pods.

http://www.thejournal.ie/poisoning-detergent-capsules-launched-2758956-May2016/

Under new EU-wide rules, the pods have to be in complete opaque boxes, that are resealable and not attractive to children.

The pods themselves have to contain a bitter chemical in the outer layer to cause anyone putting them in their mouth to spit them out.

Typically that would be something like "Bitrex", "BITTERANT-s" etc which are various connections of denatonium benzoate, an absolutely foul tasting chemical that is unbearably bitter to humans and causes you to gag / spit immediately.

 

[vacerator]

Yes,

one news network here also did a piece on this. Kids think they look like candy.

 

[iej]

The issue with the laundry pods (as opposed to most dishwasher pods) is that they're basically a bubble of liquid.

The injuries seem to be mostly respiratory and eye related rather than poisoning as when someone bites into them they tend to squirt concentrated liquid detergent all over your face and up your nose / into your eyes.

Personally, I find pods totally useless. Front loaders are the absolute norm here, and they mostly will do a few tumbles to distribute and newer models 'weigh' the load before starting the cycle using torque to gauge what's in the drum.

What I have found is that some machines will throw the pod into the door boot seal quite regularly before it has had a chance to dissolve. This happens especially if the machine is not very heavily loaded.

Then you end up with a gunky mess in the door seal that dissolves slowly as water trickles through and that may end up actually distributing most of the detergent in the first deep rinse.

A lot of European machines will use very little water in the wash phase of the cycle, so you'll just get the clothes saturated with solution - often helped by ladle paddles, bumps on the drum that pick up the water or recirculating pumps that spray it in. This means they work with higher concentrations of detergent and save hot water.

However, a lot of them will do a deep rinse. So, you'll end up clearing anything in the door seals then (including the pod).

...

Personally, I prefer using liquids for colour clothes and powder for whites (contains oxygen bleach). I don't really see pods as much more than a gimmick.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

I actually got a Gain Fling that was a free sample in a regular plastic bag...

 

Sure, a candy-like appearance, but I think I'm safe if that's how this & what ever other detergent tablets are packaged, as long as I don't have it in a jelly-bean jar...

 

 

-- Dave