SOME children's trainers with lights in the heels could kill a child because they can easily pull out the switch and swallow it, the Consumer Council has warned.
And one brand used a switch containing mercury in an exposed glass capsule which a child could smash or chew, releasing the dangerous metal, council officers said yesterday.
The tests were done following a South China Morning Post report into the mercury switch used in lights shoes made by the US firm LA Gear. The shoes were banned in Minnesota following concerns about the hazards to the environment through the disposal of the mercury switch.
While the switch in the LA Lights trainers was contained in an epoxy resin capsule impossible to break, a pair of Garfield brand shoes from Taiwan, model number GCP-066B, contained an easily removed switch carrying an unprotected glass capsule of mercury.
Mercury vapour inhaled from a broken capsule would have a worse effect than swallowing the metal, because it gets into the blood, nervous system and the brain, said Hong Kong University of Science and Technology safety officer Alfred Clancy.
The Consumer Council's latest edition of Choice magazine shows tests on 12 brands of the shoes.
The switch component in six of the brands could be removed from the shoe by two children aged four and six, and was small enough to be swallowed easily, said chief research and testing officer Connie Lau Win-hing. Four children of between three and six years old had been unable to pull the switches out of the shoes.