Asbestos in the Sand and Other Reasons to Shop from Makers

Welcome to Make Good Things Happen, a podcast for Makers in Business, presented to
you by Angela D’Alton and Renee Baker.
Welcome to Make Good Things Happen, Season 4, no,
if only. I’ve just gone a bit too far ahead. Season 2, episode 4. Welcome back.
My name is Angela D’Alton, and joining me, of course, is my cohost Renee Baker.
you will have had a chance to listen to the bonus episode we released recently
where I interviewed Morag Myerscough. Yeah, and how good was your interview with Morag
Myerscough? Well done. That was awesome. It’s pretty crazy. One of those moments
where you wake up in the morning and you go, so what’s on the calendar for today
and you go podcast recording with Morag Myerscough and you just go,
What? So good. Yeah, it was really fun. She’s a lovely lady and the project was so
colourful and interesting and had a big impact on the local community here.
It was really nice to talk to her and learn more about her practice. This episode,
we’ve got a few segments we are ready to discuss. We’re going to start with a
super hot topic and we’re going to be broaching territory that we don’t generally go
towards, which is recalled products.
But in line with our, I guess, shit customer service segment, many of you will be
aware that there has been an issue with some sand that has been distributed all
over the place. It might not be because I brought this out with my partner last
night and he hadn’t heard a thing and I’m like 15 articles deep in this story now.
like I’ve got it covered and I sort of went all kids. You know
about that asbestos blah blah? He’s like, what? I think, oh, okay, this is weird.
What we’re going to do is get Renee to tell this story because she knows, as she’s
just said, she’s 15 articles deep, but she’s also got a really good counter story
or an adjunct that goes with it that I think everyone will find pretty interesting.
Well, what happened and I think I found out about it? Because I actually do follow
the product recalls Facebook page. So I do have my finger on the pulse when it
comes to anything being recalled. I had a product that one of those humidifiers that
you use in kids’ bedrooms actually recall because they were blowing up. And I found
it just by accident as you usually do with these things. And I thought, well,
that’s not good. Like, how are you supposed to find out about product recalls? And
here we are. So I did hear about this story pretty early on, but there was a
container or a bunch of coloured sand that is used for children to play in their
sand pits or sensory bins. Primarily, I imagine, maybe adults use them as well for
other purposes like art. But, yeah, children’s sand product that was recalled because
it was found to have traces of asbestos in it. And obviously, in this country,
we’re all very familiar with the fact that asbestos is a banned substance and it
must be handled very carefully. There’s huge risks involved with respiratory illness
and so on. And so it was obviously it was a pretty big deal to find this in a
children’s product that, you know, parents have bought for their kids to play with.
Now, where it kind of got pretty juicy, I suppose, is this particular sand was
obviously being sold at the time at Office Works. That was the main brand that was
in the spotlight, I suppose, is having the recall. But as the stories progress, more
and more organisations have had to come forward to say, oh yes, we also sell a
product that contains potentially contaminated sand, different branding, of course. So
it’s obviously coming back to the supplier. Yeah, so it turns out that It started
off at Office Works and then it ended up expanding into other brands because people
realized it was actually coming from this particular manufacturer of the product. But
of course, it’s just sent the entire country into a spin. It’s turned out,
I think at this point now, there’s hundreds of schools that have been closed as a
result because, of course, in classrooms using coloured sand would be a very popular
thing for educational purposes, craft purposes and so on. It’s just absolutely
widespread. What actually unfolded, as more and more brands started coming forward,
having also stocked the potentially contaminated sand, was that it’s actually been
going on for over five years. Products dating back to 2020 are part of the recall.
So, of course, parents who are just, like I said, obviously being concerned about
the safety of their children and now being told if you have this product or if you
have used this product you must dispose of it in the following way do not vacuum
it put it in double bags make sure you take it to a place that needs that can
carefully dispose of asbestos but even further now what is being said is that oh
and by the way if you vacuumed this product that’s effectively pulverizing the the
sand, which is how you release the asbestos particles that you can inhale.
So throw out your vacuum, get rid of that. I think that’s why I’m just like in
this point of like, what the hell? Because all you might have done is spent $5
five years ago on a bucket of coloured sand to give to your kid who might have
played for it for five minutes. And now you’ve got thousands of dollars worth of
damage to deal with in, you know removal costs new vacuum costs and so on where I
guess and just as a an interesting side note or really a significant part of the
story is that the reason that this got found out was not because of any sort of
rigorous testing that products go through before they make it onto the shelves and I
think the reason that I wanted to talk about this is a lot of us when we buy
things particularly for children, but anything that we might consume or, you know,
assume a level of safety in. I think there’s an assumption that there’s someone
there behind the scenes checking that people are actually adhering to these standards.
But in this case, no, the only reason, and mind you, like I said, this was five
years that this has been happening, the only reason that this came to light was
because of some asbestos testing center, let’s call it. I don’t know the details if
you do want to find out. Oh, yeah, the ATC. Let me know. Let me know,
but now I’ll find the details. But they were doing just some routine educational
testing for training purposes and must have just grabbed a bucket of this sand from
office works to go, oh, yeah, just use that. To do a demonstration. The
demonstration revealed that there was the asbestos, but even still, it didn’t get
brought to the regulator’s attention until someone from that company was on a podcast
and brought it up as an anecdote.
Next minute, you know, again, details we probably don’t need, but I think this
actually happened in New Zealand and then the New Zealand authorities let Australia
know. And so then, of course, like I said, widespread chaos, schools being shut, all
of this. Well, it has been complete chaos. Like, I think all over Australia,
as you said, there’s been daycare centres, schools, all being affected even further
to that, like you pointed out, all of the stuff that people are having to do at
home and going back so far and then having to potentially worry in retrospect.
Oh, well, that’s like we used that and we did this with it and we did that
of the world, but also businesses to be able to, you know, set up commercial
relationships everywhere, suppliers directly from anywhere. It just goes to show how
lacks those systems can become as a result. Like you said at the start,
there is a reason for bringing this story up apart from the fact that it’s just
become a bit of a hyperfixation for me at the moment. This all happened after you
had already made this extremely awesome purchase. And tell us all about that. Well,
that’s true. And one of the things that I’ve been really careful about in the last
couple of years when I’ve been buying toys for my own child is tracing that supply
chain and knowing who made the product and knowing where it’s coming from because it
really matters to me that I’m buying things that I know I can trust and that I
know are safe. And so it’s so tempting to walk into stores, you know,
that can remain nameless at this point in time that have very low price point
products that tick a lot of boxes. But what they can’t tick and what they can’t
tell me is, yes, this is certified non -toxic. Yes, I can guarantee you this does
not contain lead. Or yes, I know that this sand doesn’t have asbestos in it.
And mind you, asbestos is naturally occurring and I believe that’s how it’s got in
there. It’s not that someone’s just crushed up manufactured asbestos and put it into
sand. That’s what I mean about why we do kind of have this sort of blind trust
that if we’re buying something that’s made for kids or if we’re buying something
that’s made for consumption or to put on our skin or to breathe in, we kind of
assume that it’s their for sake. And that, unfortunately, is an assumption that we
shouldn’t and can’t make. I’ve spent a lot of time looking into alternatives and
what that has led me to is a really beautiful community of predominantly mum -based
business who make products for children and whether that is importing handmade toys
from Germany that have got like extremely high quality standards in terms of the
paints and the dyes.
my toys and so I did yeah like you say a few months ago I did make a purchase
from a business that’s based in Queensland called the sensory way and they create
sensory kits for for children they also stock non -toxic plato and other bits and
pieces that you can use for that kind of sensory tactile play that my child
absolutely loves I went into it because I wanted the peace of mind but what came
out of it was actually just this beautiful experience of a really lovely unboxing,
you know how much we’re into how things are packaged and presented. It was just, I
know both of us, my two -year -old and I both like gasped when we opened the box.
It was so nice. I’m like, oh, look at this. And of course, now, like I’m so into
the products when we play with them. It’s always this really lovely positive
experience. And of course, I would love to shop from them again. And then, yeah.
And bonus. Now us bet this. Yeah. And then, you know, you hear of these stories
and you think, okay, so maybe it took me a little longer to be able to afford to
buy that, you know, I did have to save up. It wasn’t necessarily just a throwaway
purchase that I could make. I did have to think about it. It was really considered.
You know, I made sure that it was something that I bought around a birthday time
so I could use, you know, birthday contributions and so on. And like I said, it’s,
it’s something that we treasure and value. And less is more in that sense as well.
Like I don’t need to have hundreds and hundreds of different colours of Play -Doh. I
can have three and we can really enjoy those. Shout out, you know, and if you are
looking for non -toxic safe toys, play experiences, check out the sensory way online.
As an appendix to that shit customer service story. And again, this isn’t necessarily
about shit customer service, but it could be. I follow Consumer Affairs Victoria on
Instagram, like I just is in line with productrecall .com or whatever you called.
Yes, so I follow them on Instagram and they created a post on Instagram during the
week, which was educational, no doubt, for consumers saying that no refund signs are
illegal. I haven’t done any research to determine whether or not this is the case
in other states. And of course, I’m not a lawyer, so don’t quote me here.
And obviously, I’m using Instagram as my source. However, this post does say,
if you spot a no refund sign, you can ignore it. Post goes on to say, these signs
are illegal because they falsely suggest that you can’t get your money back even if
something’s faulty. Shops, including online stores, can’t make rules or put up signs
that take away your rights under consumer law. They can display signs like no
refunds for change of mind. So they are allowed to tell you there is a condition
for change of mind refunds. I think that’s the only time. This is a PSA from me.
I’m passing this message on because I don’t think that everybody knows this. I think
people are often, people are under the impression that if they see a no refund sign
or if they receive a no refunds message of any kind from a retailer, that that’s
their choice and up to them as to whether or not they choose to do that. There
are some items that obviously cannot be refunded or cannot be returned. If some
retailer has a sign up or even an online store that says that they don’t do
refunds, then that is actually illegal. So I think it’s really important for us to
all know that, especially coming into a season where many items are being discounted
or we’re buying for other people. And that gift risk, the risk that goes with
giving someone a gift that may not be right. If someone tells you no refunds, it
may not necessarily be legal for them to do so. It’s also another one of those
ones which kind of these both are.
single time but it’s just one of those ones and particularly now like you’ve said
in a gift giving season maybe it’s something that you highlight maybe you do offer
change of mind returns if you do that’s a really big positive so yeah just think
about how you might communicate that information in your own marketing and obviously
it very much depends on your business model overall in terms of what you even make
we all know swimwear for example and underwear and things like that you can’t return
personal items for hygiene reasons. But there’s many times where a retailer will try
and prevent giving you a refund when it’s perfectly within your rights to ask for
one. So just be careful.
For our next segment, events breakdown, Renee is going to give us a very quick
review of her visit to the Sydney ceramics market back in October.
I would love to hear more about it because I don’t think we’ve even had a proper
debrief about it yet. So can you tell me how it was for you? Well, I did see,
yeah, that you’d flagged that and I thought, oh wow, yeah, wow, that was semi
-recent, it feels like forever ago. I don’t have as much time to go to markets at
the moment, which, you know, is disappointing. So I like to try and choose them
carefully. And I hadn’t been to the Sydney Ceramics Market since they’d relocated to
Carriage Works. And so I was really excited to see how that went. And of course,
it was amazing. A lot of ceramics under one roof, I will say that. I went with
Charlotte from Love From Shop, who was my market buddy, very much appreciated to
have someone with me in that environment. Yeah, we were both a little bit fatigued
by the end, but we’re also trying to smash it out in a short space of time.
But in saying that we were both just absolutely blown away by the community feel in
the room, there was just such a huge amount of positivity. All the storeholders were
absolutely beaming. They were also loving being around each other. You can tell it’s
a really supportive community of makers that back each other. And I suppose like
there’s a lot of studios where makers work together and that kind of thing. So
there is a little bit of camaraderie already. But you could definitely feel it in
the space. The other thing that I will bring is some trend updates from the
ceramics world. I saw lots of olive oil pourer bottles, which was really cool. So
things that you can decant your olive oil into. I saw lots of spoon rests, which
was another cool thing. My favourite thing that I saw popping up at quite a few
stalls were lamps. In particular, Blake Clay had some beautiful lamps and so did
trade the mark. That is something that, yeah, when I don’t have a little toddler
climbing on furniture, I might save up for one day.
But oh my God, that was amazing. But yes, I had a great time there. So thanks for
having me, Sydney Ceramics Market. So congratulations to the Sydney Ceramics Market
team. That community and positivity doesn’t happen unless it’s being hosted by someone
who can create and foster that sort of vibe in the room. And congratulations on
creating a solid Sydney Ceramics community. And yeah, well done.
Can’t wait to see what happens next. The next event we’re going to talk about is
the one that I hosted last week, which was crafting conversation. I’ll just give you
a quick review of that. It was heaps of fun. You would have loved being there. I
spoke with Travis Price, Spencer Harrison, and Ben Sanders, all about murals and
graphic design, studying, invoicing, pitching,
and all sorts of really interesting things. Having big clients, writing children’s
books, it was such an interesting discussion and conversation.
band name is Shadow Feet and she did some really cool kind of ambient keyboard
sounds for us on the digital keyboard. Dad and I did melon balls.
And of course, thanks again to Rowena who helps me out on the night and everyone
who came along. It’s lovely. It’s just a nice vibe. And of course, the Mechanics
Institute, thanks to them for hosting us in the space. They, yeah, the Humphrey
room’s really a lovely space to be, you know, you’ve given some presentations there.
But yeah, no, we had a good time and good chat and fun was had. Also a milestone
moment because I feel like when you first moved to Ballarat, it was something that
you said, oh, I feel like I could host panel discussions here. There’s so much
creativity. There’s so many creatives. There’s such a scene for it. And yeah, you’ve
done two this year and also we’ll be hosting more in 2026. The next one will be
in March. I’m not sure what media I’m going to be centering that event around. I’m
going to decide soon. I want to get that sorted because, as everybody knows, the
next few months, like they just disappear in a breath. So I’m going to start
organizing that one soon. Just a reminder to that we have an events calendar on
Make Good Things Happen, the website. We try and keep it updated as much as we can
with markets, events, creative conferences, other opportunities for workshops and things
like that that are happening in the creative community. We also have an events
calendar on the Australian Makers Directory. So if you are a pro account on the
Australian Makers Directory, you are able to add events onto the calendar,
which is a single page on the website so they all come up at once and people can
see all the details they need to know about your event date location start time
where to buy tickets what it’s about and you can put pictures in and all sorts of
stuff and it looks really cool if I’m honest I think it looks really snazzy so I
mean even if you just host workshops or if you host pop -up shops or if you’ve got
an exhibition at a local gallery you can put that information into the makers
directory so I think I saw a VIP night
but if you don’t want that, you can still join for free. So you can be part of
that big community that’s gaining traction. And of course, we’ve just finished the
Made Right Here event recently on the Australian Makers Directory. That was just a
lot of fun and I think really so awesome to see how much the community got behind
it and backed it. I know the last few years we’ve had conversations with makers who
have felt disheartened around November because of the sort of frenzy of sales that
have erupted. I know traditionally in Australian retail, we didn’t really see a lot
of sales until Boxing Day after Christmas. Whereas now it’s almost like the reverse
people have this big sale in November so that they’re buying Christmas presents and
then things kind of quietened down. So it’s a shift culturally for Australians in
our shopping. But it’s also really challenging for makers in business who aren’t
modeling their business around massive discounts and markdowns and they don’t have
that built into their pricing model because unfortunately or fortunately depending on
how you look at it makers are often not charging enough for their products as it
is and so to then factor in 70 % off is just completely unviable so as a result
of these conversations over the last few years we wanted to do something to help
support makers during this time that didn’t mean they had to do that.
And of course, side note, no shade to anyone who does have sales. It is actually,
like I said, it is something that if you factor into your business model, it can
be really effective and it can be, you know, it can be viable. But that’s the key.
You have to factor it into your business model. You have to be able to afford to
do it because I can guarantee you the businesses that are running successful Black
Friday sales aren’t doing so at a loss. They’re making money on that product still.
And I guess this is the difference between a small business creating buffer in their
pricing strategy for discount times versus large global corporations producing extra
landfill ready pieces as loss leaders to encourage you to come and buy larger ticket
items that they need to clear out. They’re called lost leaders and many businesses
buy them purely to attract people in the door or, you know, to their online store.
It will be the big hero type bargain that you might see at the top of all of
their campaigns. It’s called a loss leader for a reason. They usually don’t make any
money from it. They often sell it for cost and it’s a way of getting the eyeballs
of the buyers in an incredibly flooded market, and it’s a campaign tactic.
But what it does is produce incredible amounts of crap. And so it’s just really
important to think about the two things differently. You know, one is a small
business or a maker at home trying to move extra product during a time of year and
compete with these large businesses who are not necessarily ethically involving
themselves in a global campaign to shift product. When we worked at Etsy,
I remember them asking me what Australia did for Black Friday. And Cyber Monday was
only just something that people were suggesting because it was, Black Friday was
predominantly brick and mortar stores. And then Cyber Monday was the, you know,
online equivalent of those sales and it was happening in America. And I remember
nobody had really heard of it in Australia. And of course, over the years, like
Halloween, the American culture has very much infiltrated our own in fundamental ways
around the way we shop. And that has meant that this Black Friday Cyber Monday
thing that had nothing to do with Australian culture before is now very much.
you want your neighbor down the road to still have that little shop or the person
that you see after school all the time who’s trying to run her own business from
home that she can still afford to be able to do that and sustain a way of life
that is important for her while she’s raising her child or, you know, the
neurodivergent friend who finds it really difficult to work in structured neurotypical
environments who is trying to eke out a living by making something, just think,
please. That’s all I’m asking. We all need stuff and sometimes the only place to
get it is from those gigantic faceless stores, especially in Australia.
But if you have the chance and the means to be able to support small and spend a
little bit more on something that is very meaningful. It will make you feel a lot
better and the person who is receiving the gift as well. I could not agree more.
The event we called Made Right Here. It was an online marketing campaign that we
used to promote the Australian Makers Directory. And so the Australian Makers
Directory is one year old. We launched roughly this time last year. We were never
great at remembering our anniversaries. But so bad.
So we created a campaign. We called it Made Right Here and we wanted to just
celebrate the businesses that are on the platform because it’s growing and we’re
seeing so many new businesses. We’re finding businesses. I’ve already found a maker
that I’m going to shop from that I hadn’t heard of before from the directory
myself. And I thought I knew everyone that made stuff in Australia. And what we did
was we promoted those makers and we encouraged the community to get behind it and
do the same. And that was it. There was no sort of gimmick or there was nothing
that was expected of anyone. As a result, it was really successful and I was really
happy with the result. So thank you for those who did participate. We can’t wait to
do it again next year. And I guess on that too, just before we finish, also wanted
to say shout out to Peppermint magazine for supporting us with that campaign as well
because obviously we love the values and the ethos behind Peppermint magazine.
They’re huge supporters in the slow, not only fashion, but just slow everything
movement. It was really nice to feel like we had someone of such prestige in this
space, have our back in that. So thank you to the team of peppermint. They also
published the digital version of the article, the interview that they did with us
that was published in the previous issue is now published on the website in its
digital form. So if you haven’t had a chance to read the article in its paper
version, head to the peppermint magazine website and you will see there is an
interview with Renee and I on there, which is nice.
And finally, this week, I’m going to take this one, I was working with the City of
Ballarat this week in the role of professional development lead for Ballarat Craft
and Design Week. So that’s a big, amazing thing that’s happening next year in
Ballarat, a big event. I’m responsible for guiding the practitioners who are all in
a collaboration this year through a professional development program, a series of
workshops and mentoring to ensure that they can kind of get from A to B through
that collaboration process to prepare them for the exhibition and the event and,
yeah, provide them with some training. It’s a really exciting opportunity for me, but
also what was really encouraging was the number and the quality of the applications
that came through. It made the selection panel very difficult for all of us in the
room.
really examining it to see, you know, how it goes against the matrix or the rubrics
that you’ve been given. And yeah, it was so, so interesting. I am now starting to
plan the workshops and I’m really looking forward to working with the collaborative
groups that we’ve got on the program. It’s going to be very exciting. So cool. And
hopefully I can make it down for the event next year. It’s in May. So it’s going
to be from the first to the 10th of May at the mining exchange again. And I have
a feeling there’s going to be a few little satellite programs or events happening at
the same time yet to be determined. Very exciting. I’m really looking forward to
seeing how it all pans out and working with the team at City of Ballarat once
again. Well, that was cool. I’m so glad that we got to record another episode for
season two. We’re a bit touch and go there. So thank you and for sticking with us
during all of that. If you’re listening to this, yes, we’ve invested in some gear
and we’re going ahead. So please keep listening because we need you to listen to
make this all worthwhile. Or share it with a friend if you haven’t already. We’d
love to have more people join us on this podcasting journey. Until then, we will
see you next time. Thanks for chatting. Thank you for joining us. Bye. Thanks for
listening to make good things happen. If you enjoyed this episode, why not write a
review? Or share it with a friend. For show notes and more, head to MGTH .com .au
This has been a D’Alton Baker production.

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