Name: Will Tide Pods Ever Be Safe?
Uploaded: 2019-02-19
Duration: 7 min 43 s
Description: The Tide Pod Challenge is Over, But Tide Pods Still Aren't Safe.

This is a Tide pod. You can find these in most supermarkets. It's basically just liquid detergent in a small packet that dissolves in the washing machine. A new detergent product is posing a severe threat Children These small colorful packets of laundry detergent this one is tied and as you can see it can look like candy to small children who have been eating them 19 month old Wyatt Wilhyde had to be incubated and airlifted to a paediatric intensive care unit after biting into a laundry pod. So when the product came out it was a white pod with orange and blue Swirls on it, which are Tide's signature colors, and it was sold in a clear tub that looked like a candy jar. I'm the mother of a young child. At the time, she was a baby and I was doing laundry. And one of the laundry pods that I was using fell on the floor. And she was attracted to it. So the fact that she was so attracted to the laundry pod and went to put into her mouth really concerned me. The populations most at risk of these pods by far are children under six. So it's about 85 %. If kids bite down on them, the liquid can shoot into the back of their mouth and go down into their lungs. That can cause the lungs to shut down, which can cause respiratory arrest, comas, seizures, and in some cases, even death. [ BLANK AUDIO ] [ MUSIC ] In Kissimmee a seven- month- old boy has died after swallowing detergent. He ingested one of those pods filled with a liquid detergent. So as soon as this came out, posion control centers started getting calls about these laundry pods and they didn't know what to do with them because they didn't even have a category for laundry pods at the time The CDC issued a statement saying that this might be an emerging public health hazard and a couple of months after that, the Consumer Products Safety Commission issued a rare public statement saying that pods represented a poisining risk. And called on manufacturers to make changes to the product, to make it safer. Several companies recently announced new designs, and new voluntary safety standards are under discussion. In the meantime, Consumer Reports says liquid pods pose such a risk that it has stopped recommending them. After that happened, P & G and the other manufacturers And consumer advocates started working together to develop a set of standards that would improve the safety of the product. Included in those standards are requirements that pods are contained in packaging that's difficult for young children to open, the packages must be opaque They need to contain bettering agent that would force someone to immediately spit it out. They need to be able to withstand a certain amount of pressure before bursting. And they need to be able to last within a certain amount of time in water before dissolving. All the standards were fully implemented by the laundry detergent industry by the beginning of 2017 but when manufacturers and. Consumer advocates reviewed that data in the middle of 2018. The numbers of emergency room visits associated with pods had barely dropped. I grew up in Astoria, I'm raising my own family here. And I've been in elected office for nine years now. Quite frankly, I don't think that their efforts have gone far enough at all. They look like toys, even more so, they've changed the packaging that contains these pods. But that doesn't prevent a pod that might fall on the floor, or if a child gets into the container from putting it in it's mouth. I think what we have to look at is the psychology behind what is making these pods so attractive to children. When the type pods came out in 2012, Procter & Gamble was found itself in a position where was strugling to innovate. And they saw the Tide pod as a huge breakthrough product for them, that was gonna reinvigorate the laundry detergent category. At the time, people weren't going to the store to buy Tide anymore, they were just going to buy the cheapest detergent, but with pods that represented a product that was gonna be Different. It was gonna stand out on the shelves, and the company was really excited about that. [ MUSIC ] One of the hardest things about launching a new format or a new product is figuring out how to have it stand out in a very loud and crowded aisle. We are Smart design, we are a strategic design consultancy. We work on creating all kinds of new category defining products and services. Tight of a really good job with that, they created something of that. They created something that really pops, something that felt very different and worked well to stand out what is expected in the detergent aisle. The flip side of that in doing that it brought the product closer to other categories, which may be had unintended consequences. They've made a lot of the changes to the low- hanging fruit around safety and addressing some of the concerns but I still think the actual design of the pod, there's opportunity to address it, to make it feel less like a candy, and really get to the heart of the problem with young kids when they pick it up and they just want to put it in their mouth. I think that there's opportunity here with design to maybe use textures or a positive. Things are gonna pull the look and feel of it away from some of it's edible. And so that just even in your hand maybe it doesn't feel so good in your hand. Maybe just you know it has a little bit of scaly feel or just you know, there little could be small things that can go along way to kind of nudge people's behavior one way or the other. And then I think there are other things that could be done even at a formula level so there could be opportunities to create maybe a non- toxic version of the formula that is really about more family friendly version of the platform. So that even if there is misuse the consequences aren't quite as strong. And so I think that there's a number of levers that Tide can still pull to really create this product that's the safest and best they can be. Consumer advocates are saying, why not try the one thing that you haven't tried, which is change the appearance of the packets. And P & G has consistently said that they won't do it. And they've say research based with the show that they say shows tha changing appearance won't make it difference in safety. The most recent pressure that's been put on Procter and Gamble has come from two of our makers and then New York state government, I would like all the pods to be uniform in color. To be a non- permeable packaging, to be individually wrapped and for each pot to have a conspicous label warning about the dangers of injesting these types of items. I know that's under a [ UNKNOWN ] and I have a great hopes for this bill We are both the parents of young children, and we understand that if we can prevent even one accidental death or poisoning, then we've done out job. P & G is at a point where they They don't really have any strong reason to make changes to the product. It's not been a hit to their business. Pods continue to be a huge hit. They've seem to made the calculation that whatever risk is associated with this product is worth whatever benefit it brings to their business. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Will Tide Pods Ever Be Safe?

Health

The Tide Pod Challenge is Over, But Tide Pods Still Aren't Safe.