A chain of Dutch bed stores said on Friday it was recalling more than 1,300 Chinese-made foam mattresses amid fears they were sprayed with toxic insecticide.
Beter Bed Holding announced the recall after tests on a shipping container holding more than 700 mattresses found they contained poison, possibly as a result of being sprayed to kill insects in wooden packaging.
"Given its contents, the container ... should not have been sprayed," the company said.
It said it was destroying the shipment of 728 mattresses and recalling 1,310 from earlier deliveries, which were sold by its BeddenReus chain. Shoppers were urged to return the items to the stores for a refund.
News of possibly toxic mattresses is another blow to the already tarnished product safety record of Chinese exporters following a string of scandals including tainted dog food and toothpaste and lead paint on toys.
Beijing attempted to repair some of the damage on Friday by releasing a policy paper that touted its past food safety record and a current campaign to crack down on poor -- and potentially dangerous -- food processing practices.
Ironically, the spraying may have been part of a Chinese move to ensure exports were not infected.
"You can do that with solid stuff, but not of course with food, textiles, stuff people sleep on," Beter Bed spokesman Richard Neve said. "If you put a chemical compound on a [foam] sleeping mattress, like a sponge it fills itself up."
The mattresses were found to be tainted when Dutch government inspectors checked the container at Rotterdam port, said Jan-Jaap Eikelboom, a spokesman at the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment.
"The first check showed they were poisonous, exactly what [the poison is] we still have to check," Eikelboom said.
Although the ministry has yet to deliver a verdict on what the toxic material is, Beter Bed said it believed it to be benzene, a carcinogen, and a chemical compound called ethylene dichloride.
Eikelboom said he did not know where in China the shipment of mattresses originated.
Separately, Toys "R" Us Inc on Friday said it was removing all vinyl baby bibs from its Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Us stores as a precaution after two bibs made in China for one supplier showed lead levels that exceeded Toys "R" Us standards.
Toys "R" Us, which operates more than 1,500 stores, said the result came in testing this month of bibs supplied by Hamco Inc and marketed under the Koala Baby, Especially for Baby and Disney Baby labels.
Tests of Hamco bibs in May were within standards, Toys "R" Us said.
Vinyl bibs made by other companies have been temporarily removed to avoid any confusion among customers and allow further testing, the Wayne-based Toys "R" Us company said.
Toys "R" Us, the second-largest US toy seller after Wal-Mart Stores Inc, said customers can return any vinyl bib purchased from a Toys "R" Us or Babies "R" Us store for a full refund.
Micron Memory Taiwan Co (台灣美光), a subsidiary of US memorychip maker Micron Technology Inc, has been granted a NT$4.7 billion (US$149.5 million) subsidy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs A+ Corporate Innovation and R&D Enhancement program, the ministry said yesterday. The US memorychip maker’s program aims to back the development of high-performance and high-bandwidth memory chips with a total budget of NT$11.75 billion, the ministry said. Aside from the government funding, Micron is to inject the remaining investment of NT$7.06 billion as the company applied to participate the government’s Global Innovation Partnership Program to deepen technology cooperation, a ministry official told the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s leading advanced chipmaker, officially began volume production of its 2-nanometer chips in the fourth quarter of this year, according to a recent update on the company’s Web site. The low-key announcement confirms that TSMC, the go-to chipmaker for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware providers Nvidia Corp and iPhone maker Apple Inc, met its original roadmap for the next-generation technology. Production is currently centered at Fab 22 in Kaohsiung, utilizing the company’s first-generation nanosheet transistor technology. The new architecture achieves “full-node strides in performance and power consumption,” TSMC said. The company described the 2nm process as
Shares in Taiwan closed at a new high yesterday, the first trading day of the new year, as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) continued to break records amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 386.21 points, or 1.33 percent, at 29,349.81, with turnover totaling NT$648.844 billion (US$20.65 billion). “Judging from a stronger Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, I think foreign institutional investors returned from the holidays and brought funds into the local market,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said. “Foreign investors just rebuilt their positions with TSMC as their top target,
H200 CHIPS: A source said that Nvidia has asked the Taiwanese company to begin production of additional chips and work is expected to start in the second quarter Nvidia Corp is scrambling to meet demand for its H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips from Chinese technology companies and has approached contract manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to ramp up production, sources said. Chinese technology companies have placed orders for more than 2 million H200 chips for this year, while Nvidia holds just 700,000 units in stock, two of the people said. The exact additional volume Nvidia intends to order from TSMC remains unclear, they said. A third source said that Nvidia has asked TSMC to begin production of the additional chips and work is expected to start in the second
RSS