Sadly, no. Assuming that this caustic soda is in suitable packaging and not in a sandpit like pile on the floor, it's likely something else will get these kids first
Caustic Soda
- Thread starter maklabouhlel
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Sadly, no. Assuming that this caustic soda is in suitable packaging and not in a sandpit like pile on the floor, it's likely something else will get these kids first
Soldato
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Their parents?
We are talking about young children here. Young enough that they should not be out unattended if they are young enough to mistake bleach for a drink.
Any kid old enough to pop out to the shop should know what they can and cant drink.
As for children who escape their parents in supermarkets, they dont read the signs, same way they dont read the packet. Staff in supermarkets are to keep an eye out for young children wondering about on their own.
It is packaged in a bottle that is meant to be childproof and also sealed. You cant expect a supermarket or retailers to do anything more really. A child could just as easily be crushed by shacking a promotion aisle shelf of cans.
Maybe ban the display of all items and make supermarkets a argos for food?
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We don't live in a war zone. Kids who go to the shops on their own probably won't die.
If the shelf of cans is that insecure, then surely we would expect them to do something about it? Or do parents just keep kids away from shelves of cans too?
Well yes, we agree on something at least
You suggested that these unsupervised kids would likely be 'got' by something else before the caustic soda had chance to melt them.
Deleted member 651465
Deleted member 651465
The legal term is 'reasonably practicable'. Has the supermarket done enough to prevent injury to children based on time/resources versus the risk it poses? If an irresponsible parent allowed the child to access the caustic soda which was on the bottom shelf and easily accessible then the enforcing authority would probably conclude they hadn't. That's not to say the parent's wouldn't shoulder some of the blame for not supervising the child though.
The rest of your points also fall under this banner. Is the small Asian supermarket going to spend thousands preventing trapped fingers (doors)? Probably not, given that any incident rate is likely to be low (non existant even). Large chains like Tesco may/will have guards on the toilet doors to prevent these types of injuries as they serve massive amounts of foot traffic and they can afford the costs.
Anti-slip flooring is common place in public buildings so again, it would be very hard for Tesco et al. to argue they've done everything reasonable to reduce slips, trips and falls. The Asian supermarket may not have anti-slip flooring but may be able to afford rubber matting to capture water and prevent ingress. If someone fell and broke their ankle and the enforcing authority felt the Asian supermarket did what they could within their budget, then that would be taken in to account.
The world is full of hazards, so the point I'm making is UK businesses have a duty of care to all those that enter. If they've taken reasonable precautions proportionate to the time spent/resources available to them, then they will be OK. After all, they can only look to reduce or mitigate the risk somewhat but they will never be able to truly remove it.
You can't. A large supermarket should risk assess the storage of hazardous substances and at the very least ensure that containers cannot be opened easily / accessed at low level. Clearly this doesn't happen all the time but I wouldn't know how much of an issue this presents to them.
Soldato
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Or you can learn not to expect everything to be safe and perfect for you
Its a supermarket, if you ever did a Saturday job in one, you know almost everything is falling apart and the frozen food you buy has defrosted at least once or twice before going in your freezer at home.
Which is a fair statement, since caustic soda is very hard to open if packaged correctly. This thread is stupid because there is literately nothing that needs to be done.
You'll also find that the parents of children in Asian supermarkets probably would give their kid a quick whack round the head if they made the wrong move toward something stupid. I know that is how it was for me and i hardly drank any stupid stuff until i could walk into a pub. Asian parents dont mess about!
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I really don't see the issue myself.
You asked how we could possible protect kids from their feckless parents. We cant
But we can in environments that we can control. Such as the display of very dangerous materials in supermarkets.
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We have controlled it. Sealed packaging with childproof lids.
Leaving it up to the supermarkets which are short staffed and made up of part time college kids is not a good idea.
There are lots of safety issues which are left up to supermarkets or other businesses, regardless of how useless their staff. My local chip shop at uni was staffed by an alcoholic old man (miss ya Toni), but he still had to stick to the H&S regs for the safety of his customers.
Ah, but did he have a child proof fence around the fat fryers? What if an unsupervised kid went for a swim?
Only on OCUK GD...
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The point i am making is that it is not up to the supermarket and in the eyes of the law, it is legal. The warning for parents on the packaging is for parents, not store managers. There are no safety issues, the bottles are sufficiently hard enough to get into if they are deemed safe for retail.
It's not necessarily legal, nor is it necessarily illegal. Any accidents occurring would prompt a consideration of whether the business failed in some duty of care, potentially to the extent of criminal charges for the owners.
Such bottles have a warning on them to "keep out of reach of children". Why do they have this if it is perfectly safe? what makes this a warning the supermarket can ignore? Is the supermarket acting irresponsibly by so ignoring the warning? Probably, they are.
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The warning is a requirement for the manufacturers, nothing more. Parents or supermarkets dont have to follow the rule, regardless of who it was intended for. It is just a legal requirement for the manufacturer.
Supermarkets have inspectors come in all the time, as well as have merchandisers at head office that know the guidelines to sales displays. What part of it is illegal?
The real danger with B&Q is that they've got ladders in these places. If a child gets hold of one of those they can access literally anything. Of course if you put the ladders up high and out of reach then how are you supposed to get them down again?
I've laid awake at night on many occasions trying to resolve this particular conundrum.