Cadmium in kids' jewelry: Back on the case (CBC Marketplace)

this is marketplace oh my god back on the case is your jewelry toxic so all of these are really injured I would not allow my daughter to butcher supple in her mouth sold in Canada made in China he uses cadmium and why she as a consumer at the peridot I don't know if you understand I think I'd like to finish my thought and then I'll go outside plus the new government crackdown marketplace goes in fines elevated levels of cadmium Health Canada this is your marketplace Stella Sophia and Lucia you're a 12 year old friends who love to shop hi I'm David really good to meet you guys do you think you could each buy $100 worth of jewelry today definitely yeah yeah let's do it one two three four five yeah we're going to meet back here when you're done good luck have fun we'll see ya okay they don't know it yet but they're part of a marketplace test we're sending them into three leading fashion accessory stores first up are Dan oh I love this color selection next they head to H&M and finally although I already see here comes off my life all right how'd you guys make out good okay let's see what you get so here's the bad news I'm going to take it all away from you but here's what we want to test it just see if there's anything wrong with it and then we're to get back together with you and your parents sound good all right now I take away I'm the Grinch we also do some shopping of our own forever 21 Claire's old navy Dollarama the Disney Store and Sears we want to know if the jewelry we and the girls bought contains any toxic metals like lead we're taking it all to this lab at the University of Toronto [Music] Mike Gordon and Miriam diamond are with the Department of Earth Sciences is that makes any difference they're using the same technology as Health Canada first up this purple ring from H&M so we're now standing through the x-ray spectrum you can already see a small feat here oh we can when it comes to LED turns out all the pieces are safe but when they task this Aldo bracelet the peaks show something else and it slightly shifted to consider what it thinks everything else and sure enough Avenue Academy and cambium and Konya ah cadmium cadmium is a metal that can be very toxic if ingested can damage kidney liver immune function basically any major system in your body can be harmed by cadmium James Van Loon is the director of risk management at Health Canada's consumer safety branch our principal concern is for this behavior of mouthing stuff chewing on it sucking on it for extended periods of time potentially even swallowing it back in 2011 the government notices some companies using cadmium as an alternative to let the identified and emerging issue of cadmium in children's jewelry and items like that so they proposed strict new guidelines 130 parts per million we think so that's a very low number it really means that you can't add any cadmium to children's jewelry but our guidelines enough for years after that announcement our tests show this although bracelet isn't the only piece with high levels of cadmium time to share the results with the girls and their parents so as any of you heard of cadmium you heard of caviar very poisonous you think we found cadmium hope not like a little bit our damn earrings who bought those no remember remember them the time fam cadmium these red are den earrings nearly 3,400 times over the kids jewelry guidelines who bought this I did yeah so the techs found cadmium in this our den blue triangle pendant is 99.6% cadmium the highest ever reported in Canada although what do you think all good all right bracelets we bought this I think the sparkly crystals in dish although bracelet tested nearly 15 times the safe amount of cadmium had you ever thought that this might be a problem buying from a store like oh no because it's also like you it's got the brand behind it and you're thinking they should be watching what goes into a product there's one more nothing yet he's Aldo bowtie earrings nearly 40 times over the Health Canada guidelines Wow train all the jewelry from H&M turns out to be States same for the other stores but take a look at these anchor earrings and watermelon pendant from our den they all contain high levels of cadmium and remember that Aldo bracelet it's multicolored charm nearly 80% cadmium that was on my wrist and I was holding a baby and the baby so to put its mouth on my wrist I wouldn't I wouldn't have thought twice about that actually when you guys go shopping do you ever consider something like this no and why is that because I just assumed that places know what sings and what's not like I'm not going to go to like a little tiny place and then Ally and look for jewelers I'm going to get a rich forest and small or like well-established stores somebody knows about it we're not the first people to find it because it was part of the manufacturing process so clearly we need to understand what's coming in so how does toxic cadmium getting all that jewelry the back of the tag says Made in China so that's where we're heading [Music] our investigation begins here in the international trade city of Arun [Music] we're meeting someone who's agreed to be our guide in China even if you say something will you promise something it doesn't necessarily mean you know you're going to get what you asked for Adam Gill borange business easy.i max helps foreign companies import goods from China it's jewelry some sort of small fraud he says if you want those Goods to be safe you have to start with the right manufacturer neo glory makes products for big name brands today they're making jewelry for guests what if you're a buyer and you put out a contract that says you can't have cadmium is that your guarantee you need to have a presence in the manufacturer at all times during your production run to be honest that's the only way that you can 100% guarantee that you're going to get the product that you want China has its own rules about cadmium even stricter than Canada and they apply to all jewelry not just children's this factory even has its own lab that tests the raw material and the finished product for cadmium do they ever find cadmium in their raw material with the news or thought of oil Uncle Buck is a simple totally economy huge so they actually do fine yeah you did you find cadmium sometimes in their raw material yes they catch it with the lab yes and send it back yes there is that it's a very good stop obviously we came here and they're already testing and it seems that they're testing you know constantly every day and so when we find jewelry on Canadian shelves that way in access of that what does it tell you about those factories and it tells me that they certainly don't have a laboratory or and if they have they've certainly not used it or ignored it if the jewelry didn't come from here what kind of factory could it have come from we're led to this residential back Alec it's small a rented ground-floor apartment less visible safety precautions and some of the work even happens in the backyard he uses cadmium yeah the to look like this fun yeah and why whistle hey butchey it'll be for the youths at Vantage so how is it cheap the manager tells us the melting point of cadmium is lower than zinc they can use a lower temperature to melt it into the mold saving on energy cost it was a good save we either revenues the buyers say we need that man yeah that's pretty common area and why do they say that if I see what their supervised so something like this is this is the metal here just 10% cadmium and 90 percent zinc gorgeous look at the syllabus covina cudahy no burger sauce watch Angela Cheng office this is 100% and uh it is it all cadmium to the clip as we're talking they get a delivery a van full of cadmium ready to be made into jewelry we asked the manager of he's concerned about the health effects of cadmium on consumers or his workers he said that he knows about the address before the people he knows cadmium is dangerous Walker knows about that huh yeah and the professor both of them he wants us alive still wants our money that reason PRC produces that he surprised for what we've seen in her nah I'm not surprised in the slightest he gets fielded from the trading companies or from other larger Patras and he basically makes whatever whatever the trading from any request he makes most of the costume jewelry imported to Canada comes from right here in a whoo often sourced from this massive wholesale market where buyers and retailers hunt for deals so we hunt for answers could we buy jewelry made with cadmium here marketplace follows the trail we should go home number you have dialed is not a church searching for answers from stores you drive this feeds your marketplace because all the glitters should be oxy so in EU China home to one of the largest wholesale markets in the world how easy would it be here to order jewelry made with toxic cadmium cocaine this is the six I'm beating six R&B right now we don't want to have the hello you lovely five point five so we can get we can get a little bit off the price yet by putting cadmium in we've been in this market for not even three men I just got it taken us no time at all behind someone will use cadmium instead of the regular component if we want to get OG liver it's going to cost us one yuan more if we want this free of cadmium I'm not suing us this already have the Academy and the first health care and they said they don't produce for with other kademan they don't make it without Kevin yes what about that toxic jewelry we bought back in Canada at Aldo and are again we asked around those are a little bit animal Erica there it is but we can't find it here [Music] so we head to Shanghai our search through shipping records leads us here no sign of the Aldo jewelry but our den we find multiple orders ship from here in 2015 we trace one of those orders to this building I know they come pay this think I can go to cooking to amount about the different house now the records show jingdong international trading company shipped fashion jewelry to our den in June just yeah okay it's almost one year yeah but we're told apparently they left a year ago back in he blue records say another company Oriel sent necklaces to our den last summer this is the address yeah we had a real good it's a home not a business never dealt with a Canadian company okay and finally chin Wan jewelry also sent necklaces to our den in May and June neighbors tell us they closed down about a month ago so we try calling the number on the sign huh we forget hope I should go home nothing triple the number you have dialed is not in service please check the number and dial again okay so here you go not in service locked up here no way to trace them what does it mean if although in our den these companies that do trade in Canada that we find cadmium in jewelry on their shelves I'm quite frankly it means they they're very sloppy with what they're doing and they don't have control over their supply chain in China back at home we shall Health Canada some of what we saw it doesn't seem sufficient to me to accept somebody's assertion that this project is compliant with the rules in Canada that is something that you as an importer really need to verify on your own but I'm left thinking that not everybody is that is it is a responsibility of everybody industry to make sure their products don't pose a danger to human health and safety so how dangerous is the jewelry 12 year old Stella and her friends bought we asked her and her mom to travel to Montreal to Ecole Polytechnique hello dr. Gerald Zachary is going to help us find out there are no known risk from Geoff touching but what could happen if a child swallows this earring from our den or the charm from Stella's Aldo bracelet these glass beakers mimic the inside of a toddler stomach how much cadmium could be absorbed into their body what's allowed in dirty water is six micrograms per day for a child we found one thousand and three hundred micrograms Wow and then would potentially end up in the blood and in the organs so that so all of these are really dangerous I would not allow my daughter for example to put such a sample in her mouth we share our findings with Aldo they tell us they're taking steps to remove the jewelry from stores and are reviewing their jewelry testing our den says it will investigate and it's not the first time our den had had to recall jewelry five times for lead or cadmium I catch up with Stella and her mom outside a mall in Montreal we asked our den to come on camera and they said no you think of that I thank you surprise me I wish I could say I was surprised by that but I'm not okay well we're not going to accept no we're gonna go to them right now really yeah would you like to come yeah yeah let's go okay can you please wait outside can you tell us who you get you're right these kind of this is from China can you tell me who's your supplier this is your marketplace the real deal on your marketplace toxic cadmium in children's jewelry made in China sold by Canadian chains like Arden some of the highest levels we found were in their products our dens loss prevention director Angie da Leo's comes down yeah I understand that but you have a necklace here that is 99.6% cadmium she hasn't lemon we don't have an appointment we've tried and nobody's been willing to talk to us you have something on your shelves that is toxic you can have to wait on Isis can I ask anything further about what you're going to do in relation to this anyway oh I see can you tell us who the supplier is I got I don't mind waiting outside while they figure out who to date who's going to come in yeah we heard you we heard you I just have to say though as a consumer and the parent I don't want you do understand actually so I'd like to finish my thought and then I'll go outside you know that I find it yeah I heard you I heard you I also not impressed that you're not even going to tell us he's going to come out and speak to us we wait outside then they come out to hand us a statement our suppliers have been advised the cadmium content and all of our jewelry must respect the maximum 130 milligram per kilogram pressure I don't care what they tell their suppliers because I don't care whether it's the supplier that's making the mistake or they're making a mistake at the end of the day it's this company that's selling it to my kids their name on the product we have sent inspectors not to speak with our Dan and Aldo about the test results that you had got to figure out to what extent these may actually be ain't being marketed straight to kids some of the products that you had identified had things were seen kind of more childlike to me but the anchors and the hearts and whatnot put it in everything in a store like that marketed it I don't think I don't know if it is I don't know how tracted some of that stuff is the kids under 15 compared to China makes it universal for kids and adults the Europeans do the same thing they combine both kids and adults why not just extend the guidelines to be regulations for everyone yeah we're we're very focused on though products that we think kids are actually likely to swallow we're not aware of any incidents relating to cadmium in jewelry like costume jewelry resulting in injury this was apparent I don't want to be the one whose kid goes to hospital to prompt you to go and take action yeah and as a regulator I'm suggesting that you should probably try to keep age-appropriate materials in the hands of your kids one of it turned out that costume jewelry that your 11 year olds bought was 50 or 80 or almost 100% cadmium yeah I probably if I knew that that was 100 cadmium I probably would say no Sophie and that over it's been a year since we first broadcasted story and now Health Canada is moving to finally turn those cadmium guidelines into law means they'll be able to take swifter action when recalling products from store shelves we catch up with Mike and Miriam at the University of Toronto this is a fabulous example of how great investigative journalism results in changes marketplace goes in Klein's elevated levels of cadmium in the marketplace the Canadian public is now aware of this Health Canada's moved and Arden tells us it's now making changes to its pulled all that toxic jewellery marketplace identified off their shelves and it's going to have more stringent monitoring of its supply chain they're going to be employing third-party testers that's great they're upgrading their product quality standards and they will have written compliance guarantees and they're orienting the the compliance guarantees to adults as well as children our den now acknowledges some of their adult jewelry may also appeal to children our den has really responded to what happened with the marketplace investigation they're demonstrating good corporate responsibility and that's exactly what they should be doing and that's what they should have been doing all along next week on marketplace looks like chicken tastes like chicken but how much of it is really chicken they've restructured it and kind of reformed it marketplace fires up the grill when I make chicken at home I don't use anywhere near the number of areas 48 more ingredients than I expected it is a better course to know about sugar in the chicken putting your favorite fast food grilled chicken to the task we shouldn't be at the College chicken [Music] you

Channel: CBC News

Views: 1,009,855

Keywords: CBC News, CBCNews, CBC broadcasting media, public broadcasting, news, Canadian News, Canadian Broadcasting Corportation (TV network), CBC News Network, cbc marketplace, marketplace, marketplace cbc, jewlery, jewellery, bling, necklaces, toxic, chemicals, china, cadmium, lead, poisoning, children, kids

Id: wJbtaboHsmo

Length: 22min 26sec (1346 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2017