50 Household Products Subject to Immediate Ban and Recall in South Korea

On March 28th, 2019, South Korea’s Ministry of Environment (MoE) ordered a ban and recall [1] of 50 household products from the market. The 50 products have been listed on the hazardous Products Sales Prevention System (http://upss.gs1kr.org), and are subject to an immediate ban in stores and supermarkets. In addition, the sale through ecommerce was forbidden by the Korea online shopping association.

These products are regulated according to the Act on Safety Management of Consumer Chemical Products and Biocides (also called K-BPR) and were reported by customers due to violations of safety and labelling standards.

For the 50 household products, 49 products were found that have not been subject to a mandatory safety standard self-check prior to market circulation. For the one remaining product, the content of formaldehyde was more than 2.3 times the maximum permitted concentration specified in the safety standard.

According to Article 37 of CCA, companies that manufacture or import products in violation of the regulations need to provide customers with a full refund or replace the unsafe products with safe products. In addition, they need to recall all the products they have delivered to distributors. All the breaches in regulations will be published on the living environment safety information system (http://ecolife.me.go.kr).