Reporting on liquid laundry detergent capsules ingestion incidents
Since the first A.I.S.E. Product Stewardship Programme on liquid laundry detergent in 2012, A.I.S.E. has regularly reported on the evolution of incident numbers as the PSP measures are implemented by companies. These reports include quantitative incident tracking to better understand the root causes of liquid laundry detergent capsules ingestion incidents. The aim is to assess incident frequency both in absolute terms, as well as relative to potential developments in the liquid laundry detergent capsules market size. This reporting is done in cooperation with several PCCs.
A.I.S.E. PSP reports
Reporting on detergent capsule accidentology research
Building on a commitment made as part of A.I.S.E.’s 2012 Product
Stewardship Programme, and in order to understand the root causes for
accidental exposures to detergent capsules especially among young
children, A.I.S.E. has partnered with five Poison Control Centres (PCCs)
to carry out qualitative ‘accidentology’ research.
The PCCs are based in Dublin (Ireland), Göttingen (Germany),
Milan (Italy), Prague (The CzechRepublic) and Utrecht (The
Netherlands).They serve a combined population of approximately 90
million inhabitants. The study scope covers all detergent capsules
(laundry, dishwasher and others) contained in a water-soluble film. Over
a 6-month period, starting in autumn 2014, details of incident
circumstances of 401 cases were systematically collected.
Most accidental exposures (82%) involved liquid laundry capsules,
while 16% of cases involved automatic dishwashing (ADW) capsules.
- The study shows that 66% of incidents involved capsules or packs
that were directly accessible to a child i.e. capsules or packs not
safely stored.
- In 44% of cases, the exposed child managed to take a capsule from a container.
The final accidentology report, released by A.I.S.E. and five
European Poison Control Centres in 2015, includes results, key learnings
and recommendations from Poison Control Centres.