Episode 15 Watchdog Test House

Take a look around your home.

Can you be sure that every appliance is safe?

Is everything a company tells you about a product true?

And are you getting the best value for your money?

With the help of the country's top experts,

we're going to see what it takes

to test the household products we use every day.

We'll discover how they're pushed to their limits.

We'll put the makers' claims on trial.

And show you how to make your money go further.

You'll find these products in any ordinary house,

but this is no ordinary house.

And no ordinary street.

This is the Watchdog Test House.

Hello. We're deep inside one of Britain's leading science centres.

Here at the Building Research Establishment

some of the products and materials that we use every day

are put to the test to make sure that they're safe,

environmentally friendly and that they don't fall apart.

Coming up on today's programme - beware the counterfeit toys...

When you hear people saying they went blue,

you think it's a figure of speech.

No, he was actually blue, he couldn't breathe.

The crackdown on dangerous products coming onto the market.

That is a potential choking hazard for children.

The battle of the bags.

How do supermarket plastic bags stand up to some serious testing?

And why the modern-day motorcycle helmet

might not be here without Lawrence of Arabia.

First, toys.

Not surprisingly they're among

some of the most regulated products on the market.

In fact, under current legislation

most toys require thousands of pages of official safety documentation

before they can be sold.

Sadly, even such stringent controls can't always prevent a dangerous toy

from falling into the hands of a child.

'It was Oliver Bullock's first Christmas

'and his mum Gemma had bought him a soft toy

'which she thought had been made by the popular brand Lamaze.'

I bought the toy online and the toy was for zero months plus,

and Oliver was only two months at the time.

I thought it was safe for him, basically.

'What Gemma didn't know was she'd accidentally bought a fake.

'What appeared to be a harmless plaything

'was in fact a serious danger to her baby.'

I was doing my hair in the mirror and I heard a noise.

A noise I hadn't heard before.

'I looked across and realised Ollie was actually going blue'

and the leg had actually got so far stuck into his throat

he was basically just swallowing it

and the knot had got jammed in his throat.

When you hear people saying, "They went blue",

you think it's a figure of speech. No, he was actually blue.

He couldn't breathe.

'Luckily Gemma managed to remove the leg from his throat quickly.'

He just screamed. Both of us were really, really shaken up.

I couldn't believe it.

I checked the toy over and I realised my toy didn't have the CE mark.

A CE mark is evidence that a toy meets British standards

and has been subjected to rigorous safety testing before being sold.

It's a legal requirement under toy-safety regulations

for any toy sold in the UK.

If it doesn't have this stamp

then there's a good chance it hasn't been tested

and might not be safe.

It was only when I went onto the actual Lamaze website itself

to check the toy

and then I realised the pictures were completely different

and I couldn't believe it.

I phoned Lamaze.

The man from Lamaze was really, really helpful.

He said he was aware of counterfeit toys entering the UK.

'Lamaze told Gemma their toys would always be sold with a CE mark.

The one she'd bought Oliver was a fake.

So Gemma ordered the genuine toy.

Once I'd got them I put them next to each other.

The colours on them,

the actual Lamaze one were really bright and vibrant.

The colours on the fake one, you could see they were already fading

although it was only a month old,

but it was only when comparing it to a genuine one

you can see the difference.

And the legs on which Oliver choked were much longer on the fake toy

than the real one, posing a much greater risk.

I honestly can't believe somebody would make a counterfeit toy

for a baby, a newborn baby. They can't defend themselves.

As with all products, it's up to the manufacturers

to ensure their toys meet all the relevant safety legislation

and, if they're not on top of it, Trading Standards will be.

'What we don't want to do is we don't want to be stopping stuff

'once it's on the market and particularly perhaps

'once somebody has been injured.'

If we can stop it here at the point of entry

that's obviously the ideal situation.

'Later we'll join the officers at the port in Southampton,

'as they seize products believed to be dangerous.'

-I've pulled it apart!

-HE LAUGHS

-Silly.

-And that is a potential choking hazard for children.

'And we'll see what happens

'when the toys are put through their paces in the lab.'

Now, plastic bags.

From next year the government plans to introduce a 5p charge

for every disposable bag given out at supermarkets

and larger stores in England,

following similar moves in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

The idea is to cut down on the number of these that we all use.

Good for the environment,

but what exactly are you getting for your money?

Well, Sophie, Tesco say theirs uses less plastic but are just as strong.

Sainsbury's offer you a Nectar point each time you use the same bag.

Morrisons claim to be strong enough to be reused

and ASDA encourage you to bring their bags back for a second go.

So, we're going to find out just how reusable plastic bags

from the four biggest supermarkets really are.

To start with, we're going to take a look at each bag's vital statistics

here at the National Measurement Office.

Bag production over the years, the production method hasn't changed,

but the speed of production has changed,

the bags are a lot thinner than they used to be

and they're made a lot quicker.

So, first up, we're going to see how thick our bags are.

This nifty bit of kit measures items 1/500th of the width of a human hair,

making simple plastic bags easy pickings.

Our thinnest bags are from Morrisons and Sainsbury's at 0.011mm.

Our thickest is from Tesco, at 0.013mm,

with ASDA just behind at 0.012mm.

But does that translate to a stronger bag?

Time to find out.

Each of the bags is suspended from a hook and weights gradually added,

500g at a time. More weight will be added until the bag breaks.

You can see the bag handles take the strain and stretch,

although that isn't a sign of weakness.

If you're carrying heavy shopping for any distance

you will notice that it starts to stretch around the handles.

Then the handles get longer,

but as the handles get longer they are getting stronger.

Our first bag to break proves that thickness isn't everything.

It's ASDA, the second-thickest bag.

Although the ASDA bag did manage over 15kg,

the equivalent of 15 bags of sugar.

Sainsbury's was next to go at 18kg.

Leaving Morrisons and Tesco's in joint first place

as they both managed to withstand an impressive 21.5kgs.

The plastic bags in front of us

are probably made from polyethylene, which is a plastic.

The Tesco one was the thickest but if you look at the bottom,

it says HDPE, which is high-density polyethylene,

which is one of the stronger grades of polyethylene.

So, it seems how strong a bag is

doesn't necessarily relate to how flimsy it may look,

with one of our thinnest bags, Morrisons,

finishing joint top,

and one of our thickest bags, ASDA, in last place.

So, treating our bags more gently

could help get them home in one piece.

So, how will they stand up to the real world?

If I start putting the load on very slowly

you can feel that it's getting stronger.

You can see I'm pulling quite hard on this bag now,

but if I pull it very quickly... it's just going to snap.

So, treating our bags more gently

could help get them home in one piece.

So, how will they stand up to the real world -

the jiggling that comes with the journey home,

and the strange-shaped objects that come with the weekly shop?

Find out later.

Now, crash helmets.

These days, they're put through rigorous testing

and some are rated according to their performance in safety tests.

Since 1973, all motorcyclists in the UK have had to wear one by law,

it's undoubtedly helped save lives.

In fact, it was the death of a famous military figure

which prompted the development of the modern-day crash helmet.

Here's Lynn Faulds Wood.

'Welcome to Watchdog...

'In tonight's programme...

'All these people have written to us...'

In 1935, TE Lawrence, the British Army Officer

made internationally famous

by the Oscar-winning film Lawrence Of Arabia,

died after sustaining fatal head injuries in a motorcycle accident.

He wasn't wearing a helmet.

One of the doctors attending him was neurosurgeon Sir Hugh Cairns.

And he was so profoundly affected by treating Lawrence,

that he began a long study into the unnecessary loss of life

through motorcycling head injuries.

This is the British Medical Journal published in 1941.

And in it there are pages and pages

of really detailed research by Sir Hugh Cairns.

And the conclusion of all his pioneering work

was that if crash helmets became the standard

it could save countless lives.

That same year, as a result of his research,

it became compulsory

for crash helmets to be worn by British Army motorcyclists.

But even though it was now established

as a vital piece of safety equipment,

the crash helmet was still fairly basic in design.

The first helmets tended to be made from felt and gosh shells

with cork shock-absorbing padding.

They gave good abrasion protection,

some impact protection, but they had a long way to go

to offer proper shock-absorption in protecting the brain.

'No-one is more vulnerable than the motorcyclist.'

It wasn't until after World War II that the Road Research Laboratory,

the Government body responsible for road safety,

began to test the materials and performance of crash helmets.

Inside the head form

they would actually fit a light bulb

and the measurement of pass or failure

was whether the light bulb actually was broken.

Which was pretty basic,

but it technically moved forward rather quickly.

It was these early tests that led directly

to developing the world's first performance standard

for protective helmets in 1951.

It was tremendously important because it set the benchmark.

This period of time,

the UK led the world in head protection.

As development continued, new materials were introduced.

Then in the late 1950s, Roy Richter, a US auto racer,

developed the Bell 500 with a polystyrene liner.

This was really a quantum leap.

The helmets were much more efficient

and the overall protection given was greatly improved.

But it was another Doctor, George Snively,

who, after the death of American car racer, Pete William Snell in 1956,

was really to push the boundaries of crash-helmet safety testing.

It was an unnecessary death

because the helmet he was wearing had failed.

George was devastated by this and angered as well

and had a closer look at the standards and the helmets

and formed the American Snell Foundation.

The Snell Foundation took existing standards

and moved testing to a higher level,

demanding more and more protective performance from the industry.

George Snively needs to be thanked

in introducing that ethos

into helmet testing.

By the late 1960s,

the first Bell full-face crash helmet was introduced,

offering more protection than ever before.

Then, in 1973, 32 years after

Sir Hugh Cairns' ground-breaking research,

crash helmets finally became compulsory

for all motorcyclists in the UK.

Today, every motorcycle helmet on sale

has to meet minimum safety requirements,

and many go beyond that.

But such advances in performance and safety standards

brought their own set of problems.

With so many helmets on the market,

the Department For Transport was concerned

about the differences in their performance.

So how would motorcyclists choose between them?

Well, in 2007, SHARP,

the Safety Helmet Assessment And Rating Programme,

was introduced.

The scheme tests helmets to an even higher standard

than the minimum requirements.

Their performance is then rated using a five-star scoring system.

It's here, at the INSPEC facility,

that these tests are carried out.

We perform two tests configured in slightly different ways

to assess the impact injury

that would occur to the brain during an accident.

Many sections of the helmets

are tested to simulate different impact positions.

The linear test is looking at

the shock-absorption performance of the helmet

and we would be impacting the helmet at three velocities,

against a flat anvil, which would simulate a road surface,

or a kerbstone anvil, which would simulate the rider hitting the curb.

The oblique test assesses the frictional properties of the helmet.

The test is assessing the rotational effect of that helmet

as it would stick to something like a road surface.

Meaning that the head is not going to get caught on the road

and you won't get rotational injuries.

The results from these tests are analysed

to determine each helmet's Sharp Star rating.

We probably performed approximately 15,000 individual impacts,

which equates to about 300 models.

The more stars, the better protection the helmet can give.

In fact, if motorcyclists actually wore the safest helmets available,

it's estimated that every year up to 50 lives could be saved.

Now, do you take vitamins, some vitamin C perhaps

if you think you're coming down with a cold?

Or maybe something more specific,

a multivitamin for pregnancy or old age.

The chief scientist from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society,

Professor Jane Lawrence, is here to talk us through

whether it's worth splashing out on vitamins and supplements.

It's very difficult, some worth a few pennies,

some are worth an awful lot of money.

How do you navigate this world?

The first thing to realise is that if you're an adult

on a normal, healthy diet you probably don't need vitamins.

There are obviously certain groups of people

that do need vitamins, young children,

particularly up to the age of five.

The elderly may need some vitamins.

People who want to get pregnant,

who are pregnant and breastfeeding, will also need vitamins.

And potentially people who don't go out much in the light

might need a vitamin D supplement.

But most of us, probably don't need to spend the money on these.

You wouldn't think that though when you go into a shop or a chemist

and the aisles are full of them.

What about those supplements,

vitamins that promise to boost your immune system,

make you less tired, give you more energy, how do they work?

Unfortunately, the evidence isn't there to say that they do work.

But if you are feeling particularly tired

and you have a good, healthy diet and nothing's helping,

I suggest you go to your pharmacist and doctor to get checked out,

in case you do need something.

We've spoken to the Health Supplements Information Service,

the trade body, and they say yes, a healthy diet is recommended,

but there are people who are not getting a healthy diet

and therefore supplements can help.

When you take supplements, you can get them in different forms.

You can get them in effervescent form,

you can also just swallow them.

Is one better than another?

I think it's personal choice,

but what's important to remember about the effervescent ones,

they contain quite a high amount of sodium.

So if you are hypertensive, for example, or on a low-sodium diet,

taking an effervescent tablet may actually increase your sodium level

over the daily dose you are meant to have.

And even if you have got a normal diet,

you might not realise you're taking extra sodium in the tablets.

It's all in the healthy diet?

-Yes, it is.

-Professor Lawrence, thank you.

Back to those carrier bags now.

Earlier we saw how plastic bags from four of the major supermarkets

coped with our thickness and strength tests

under controlled conditions.

But what about in the real world?

Yes, under controlled conditions

we discovered how the strength of a bag

doesn't necessarily relate to how flimsy the bag may look.

With one of our thinnest bags, Morrisons,

finishing joint top, along with Tesco's,

and one of our thickest bags, Asda, in last place.

Now, for the real-world test.

With the help of these four sporty volunteers,

we're going to simulate some shopping scenarios

here at the Olympic running track at Brunel University.

All under the watchful eye of Dr Lynn.

We filled our shopping bags

with some regular items from a weekly shop.

Each bag contains the exact same items

which all add up to the exact same weight.

All our athletes have to do is get to the end of the track

with the shopping still safe within the bags.

First up, the leisurely stroll back from the shops,

something all the bags should be able to cope with easily.

Let's find out.

# Right here, right now

# Right here, right now

# Right here, right now

# Right here, right now. #

MUSIC SCREECHES TO A HALT

As expected, this test is a breeze for all four bags.

We can see that all the bags

have got evidence of some stretching around the handles.

They all seem to be holding up pretty well.

But what about upping the pace a bit?

We're all in a rush these days,

so let's see how they cope on the return leg at a bit of a jog.

We're now starting to jog.

The contents will be bouncing up and down

and really loading the bags much quicker.

Again, it looks like a sterling performance from all four bags.

Sainsbury's bag still looks pretty good.

Getting a bit thin around the top but still holding up.

Tesco bag, handles are getting much longer and quite white at the top.

Little bit of a split, but not too bad at all.

The Asda bag, it almost looks like it is becoming quite fibrous here.

But, in spite of the holes, it's still fairly strong.

The Morrisons bag is showing the same stretching around the handles,

but it's still bearing up really well,

so lots of strength left in there. I think they are doing very Well.

But how about in an emergency - a full-on sprint for the bus?

And it looks like it's too much for the Asda bag,

but the other three bags make it safely across the line.

This is the Asda bag that failed.

It didn't fail on the really damaged handle,

but it looks like it's split...down the centre here.

Considering the amount of material,

it's done very well to do what it's done.

Taking into account the weight test...

and our real-world simulation...

we have joint winners in the Tesco and Morrison's bags.

With Sainsbury's in second place...

..and Asda third.

Tesco told us they are committed

to reducing the use of single-use plastic bags.

Morrisons say they designed their bags

to be strong enough to carry shopping and to be reused.

Overall, the banks have done very well

and we should be able to reuse them a number of times.

Very impressed, I think. They stood up to some serious damage quite well.

Back now to toys.

Most toys that come into the UK are from China

and, like all imported toys,

they must comply with the UK's strict safety rules.

But what about the ones that don't?

That's where Trading Standards come in.

They work behind-the-scenes to find them and remove them from sale.

It's Monday morning at the port of Southampton,

where Trading Standards officers Malcolm Thornton and Lawrence Downer

are trying to prevent dangerous toys from reaching the UK market.

What we don't want to do

is we don't want to be stopping stuff once it's on the market

and particularly perhaps once somebody has been injured.

If we can stop it here at the point of entry,

that's obviously the ideal situation.

Intelligence reports have led them

to identify two containers of concern

on a ship from Hong Kong that docked during the early hours.

So, what do we reckon is in here? Anything exciting?

Oh!

57 different products.

OK, we'll just dig a few out and have a look.

Not quite sure where we're going to start, mind you.

Almost immediately they find something of interest.

HE LAUGHS We know these.

This is obviously a little kiddie's toy, chair,

whatever you want to call it.

The problem we've had with these in the past

is the feet come off relatively easily

and then you've got, on some of them, sharp edges.

Which are a potential...

hazard.

And, of course, that is a potential choking hazard for young children.

We won't be allowing that to go on into the marketplace.

This early discovery suggests that their intelligence is correct.

Closer investigations are now required.

Let's have a look in here.

One of the little things about children's toys,

the battery compartment,

you have to basically make it childproof

and you can see, this has been made to take a screw

so you can't get the battery compartment open without a screw,

but they haven't bothered to put the screw in.

So, potentially, access to the batteries, choking hazard,

people can swallow them.

Not a great idea.

And it's not just the missing screws that are worrying.

Look how securely these...

There's a small LED there, there's an eye...

which didn't take a huge amount of strength.

That's potentially getting into the hands of anyone

from the age of baby upwards, really.

Next, the team find a set of dolls in the container.

Once again there are problems.

The actual quality,

in the past they have pulled apart very easily!

And that is a potential choking hazard to children.

So, not particularly scientific, but you can see what happens.

It's the sort of thing which will encourage us

-to think we'll probably have that tested, isn't it?

-Yeah.

And that's exactly what they do.

The seizures have resulted in six different toys

being sent for safety analysis to a lab in Portsmouth.

The team start with a tension test

on a shoelace from one of the dolls.

This will establish how easily it can be detached from the toy.

So that breaks straightaway.

Units of force are measured in newtons.

This shoelace should have withstood a force of 19 newtons,

in fact just 0.5 and it came apart.

It could be deemed as a choking hazard, couldn't it?

The next experiment tests the material on this doll

to see how easily it will tear.

The quality for the seams is 70 newton minimum force,

this actually failed at 28 newtons.

The fibrous filling material

shouldn't be accessible to young children.

So that immediately fails the standard.

Following this failure,

it's time for flammability tests on another doll.

This one should not burn faster than 30 millimetres per second.

210 millimetres.

Finally a pass.

The doll burns at a rate of just five millimetres a second.

It's not considered a fire risk,

but it did fail other tests.

And remember the toy dog that was seized?

It now faces the all-important tension test on the nose and eyes.

So the actual dye that was behind the eye.

And the wires on that have got sharp points,

but also LED soldered joints.

Which again, it shouldn't be accessible to the children.

In fact, all the toys seized and tested

failed at least one requirement.

So a successful operation for Malcolm and his team.

These particular products obviously won't be reaching the market,

so they won't get into the hands of young children

where they might possibly have done some damage or injury.

If you want more information on the safety of products in your home,

you can go to our website:

That's all for today. Thanks for watching.