We Sent 18 Squishy Toys To A Lab. Here’s What We Found — Talking Point

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I have 10 squishy toys. 11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 21. 75 from the last time I counted. [00:00:08] Speaker 2: Oh, wow. [00:00:09] Speaker 1: I have 127. [00:00:11] Speaker 2: 127? Yes. [00:00:13] Speaker 1: Hi! What's your name? My name is Bluey. [00:00:16] Speaker 2: Hello! My name is Pinky. I'm a cat. I'm not so good at meowing. So, woof, woof! Why do you like all these squishy toys? [00:00:25] Speaker 3: Because they are so special. [00:00:28] Speaker 1: Because they smell nice. [00:00:30] Speaker 3: This one is rare. There's shock concern. When I'm stressed with something, when I squish it, I feel very comfortable. [00:00:37] Speaker 2: Is your life very stressful at seven years old? [00:00:40] Speaker 3: Very difficult. [00:00:41] Speaker 2: Very difficult? Do you ever bring your squishies to bed with you? [00:00:46] Speaker 1: -Do you sleep? -Yeah, sometimes. I just hold it like that and then go to sleep. I popped the squishy before and it was like shaving cream. It just goes all over my hand and it's really hard to come out. [00:00:56] Speaker 2: Was it like sticky? [00:00:57] Speaker 1: Yeah, very, very sticky. [00:00:59] Speaker 2: As I found out, squishies are the latest craze among kids today. But recently, I've been seeing these on my news feed. Dangerous chemicals have been found in some of these seemingly harmless toys. And authorities in the UK, US and Thailand have stepped in. And some of you have written in to Talking Point asking about the ones in Singapore. what's really inside them. How safe are the squishies that our children are playing with? I'm going to take one of these and send it to a lab for testing. Which one do you want me to take to the lab? [00:01:43] Speaker 1: -This one. -Oh, strawberry. This one. This one. This one. [00:01:46] Speaker 2: Goodbye, squishy. [00:01:47] Speaker 1: Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye-bye. [00:01:52] Speaker 2: No feelings for you, my friend. Okay, thanks. I will take this and we'll find out what's inside. Here in Singapore, squishies are easy to find in malls, neighbourhood shops and online. And they cost anywhere from around $2 to about $30. Along with the six I took from the kids, I bought 12 more. We've sorted them into three broad types. Six filled with liquid or gel inside. Six slow-rising squishies, which gradually return to shape after you squeeze them. And six stretchy ones, made to be pulled and stretched. All 18 squishies are going to be tested for benzene, a chemical known to cause cancer. Unrestricted phthalates, which are linked to developmental health risks. These chemicals were the reason for overseas recalls and warnings. Assistant Professor Mervyn Ng works with polymers and materials at the nanoscale. That's a scale that is far too small to see with the naked eye. And today, he's helping me understand why potentially harmful chemicals might turn up in these squishy toys. It's time for some surgery. [00:03:28] Assistant Professor Mervyn Ng: So we've got these three squishy toys here, but are they made of the same material? So they are all made of polymers. Polymers are very versatile materials. You can make them spongy, elastic or stretchy. [00:03:39] Speaker 2: I've also heard of squishy toys that have benzene and phthalates in them. Is that common for all these squishy toys? [00:03:46] Assistant Professor Mervyn Ng: Benzene is not common in these toys. It is an unintended impurity due to contamination in the process of manufacturing. So some manufacturers, they may use lower grade chemicals that are contaminated with benzene. The manufacturers just have to use higher grade chemicals, purer chemicals, to make them so that they do not have benzene. What about phthalates? Because it's a cheaper option to use cheaper polymers that are hard. Phthalates are added deliberately by the manufacturer to make the plastic softer and more malleable. [00:04:19] Speaker 2: Are those chemicals found more on the exterior or interior of the toy? [00:04:23] Assistant Professor Mervyn Ng: Mostly it's in the exterior, but it may also leach into the interior. [00:04:26] Speaker 2: How dangerous is it for kids to be playing with toys that have benzene and phthalates in them? [00:04:33] Assistant Professor Mervyn Ng: Benzene is very volatile, so it evaporates into the air. But long-term exposure to benzene is known to be linked to blood disorders and leukemia. Short-term exposure can cause dizziness or headaches. So children, they are particularly vulnerable because they play with these toys for an extended period of time. And they are smaller in size. And what about phthalates? Are those also dangerous to children? So the thing about phthalates is that they aren't locked into the plastic. They can migrate out, so some of these phthalates can also be absorbed through the skin. [00:05:07] Speaker 2: Oh, okay. So if it's on the exterior, actually that's not great because these toys are being handled all the time. And kids like to play with them, touch them, you know, rub them against their face. Which means I could essentially be rubbing the chemical onto myself. Yeah. [00:05:21] Assistant Professor Mervyn Ng: So phthalates, they are known to affect the hormone levels and development in children. All right. Who shall we cut up first? Let's start with this slow-rise. Okay. [00:05:30] Speaker 2: Go for it. [00:05:36] Assistant Professor Mervyn Ng: Pull it in here. This toy is made of polyurethane foam. So there's a lot of small air pockets in here, microscopic air pockets. So when we press it, the air comes out. And then when we release, the air slowly seeps in again. On the inside, because it's made from polyurethane foam that is naturally soft and flexible. Typically, manufacturers do not have to add additional plastic sizes like phthalates. Okay. So if you find phthalates in toys like this, it will probably be for the materials on the outside. Okay, next let's cut up this stretchy guy. The exterior is a thermal plastic rubber that is naturally stretchy. The interior is made of a gel-like material. [00:06:17] Speaker 2: So can manufacturers make these squishy toys without using any phthalates? [00:06:21] Assistant Professor Mervyn Ng: They can if they choose the correct polymer. Some polymers are inherently stretchy and soft. So for example, silicon is a synthetic polymer that has some stretchiness and flexibility. But these often cost much more. [00:06:35] Speaker 2: Okay, so now we have this third squishy toy. Let's cut these up. Here we go. This one's going to spill, I'm sure. [00:06:46] Assistant Professor Mervyn Ng: It's a lot more liquid than the gel-based one. [00:06:48] Speaker 2: Well, I want to show you this report. I came across it where they looked at some squishy toys. One of them was found to have a pH of 2, which I'm told is similar to like lemon juice and vinegar, right? If it gets into your eye, like how lemon juice gets into your eye, it will be pretty painful. Do we need to worry about kids coming into contact with these contents? I mean, what are the likely scenarios for one of these toys busting? [00:07:11] Assistant Professor Mervyn Ng: When a child plays with this toy, he or she may bite it or sit on it, which causes the outer shell to break or crack, exposing him to the inner filling material. In an airplane, for instance, where the cabin pressure changes, the outer shell may also rupture. [00:07:32] Speaker 2: And it's not just rough play or changes in air pressure. In the US in June, a squishy left in a hot car for more than four hours exploded when a 13-year-old girl squeezed it, causing third-degree burns to her arm and leg. The temperature that day in the US reached about 34 degrees Celsius. On average, the temperature in Singapore is around 31 to 32 degrees Celsius. On very hot days, it can exceed 35 degrees Celsius. So what happens if we leave a squishy in a car for three hours under these temperatures? Instead of squishies, I'm using three sealed bags of water to stand in for their liquid fillings. Each contains 100 ml and I'm plating them where a kid might leave a squishy. On the dashboard, the front passenger seat, and the back seat. That day, the temperature was about 32 degrees Celsius. It is now 12 noon. I'm going to come back and check on the temperature of each bag of water for the next three hours. So it's been three hours and at the end of it all, the highest temperature recorded was from this bag left on the dashboard. It went up to a temperature of 60 degrees Celsius. But would an actual squishy toy hold up after hours in that kind of heat? Time for the squishy test. In my car, a bag of water left on the dashboard reached 60 degrees Celsius after three hours. This demonstrates how hot the liquid or gel filling inside a squishy toy can become when left in a parked car under the sun. Associate Professor Valero Isoni has spent years exploring chemical processes and their real-world applications. Today, he's helping me find out if prolonged heat could push a squishy toy to breaking point. You told me to measure the temperature of the water inside the bag. Why do that? Why not measure the temperature inside the car? [00:10:14] Speaker 5: Well, water tends to retain heat much better than air, so the temperature tends to be more stable. And it also mimics well the filling for the squishy toys. The temperature can affect both the outer structure of the toy and also the inner parts, so the filling. We need to do some more experiments using our oven so that we can explore what happens to these toys when they're exposed to prolonged heat. [00:10:39] Speaker 2: So you're saying we should, what, put the toys in an oven? [00:10:42] Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, so that would be a control environment that will replicate the same conditions that a toy will experience, let's say, in the hottest part of the day for a few hours. [00:10:52] Speaker 2: Okay, I guess we should go to the lab? Yeah. Alright. [00:11:01] Speaker 5: Why did you pick these three? So even though they look quite similar, the three toys have a different texture to it, the thickness of the outer shell and the texture of the filling. So we're trying to test similar looking type of squishies under the same conditions and see what happens. [00:11:21] Speaker 2: Sure, let's go for it. How do we pop it in the oven? [00:11:23] Speaker 5: Now, place them at 60 degrees. [00:11:28] Speaker 2: And how long do we have to leave it in there for? [00:11:31] Speaker 5: We'll monitor every hour, but we'll leave it there for three hours. That will mimic a long exposure to the sunlight and the heat. [00:11:39] Speaker 2: Okay, what do you expect to find? What's your guess? [00:11:41] Speaker 5: It's hard to predict. They might deform or they might stay the same. I would be curious to see. Okay. [00:11:52] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they all still look very much intact. They feel a little bit softer. Softer. Let's put it back in. Don't want to lose too much heat. It's been two hours. Shall we see if anything's happened? Yep. Let's have a look. Still got their happy face on. You can feel the warmth, but... [00:12:21] Speaker 5: Ooh, this is much softer. The shell seems to be intact. Okay. So far, so good. [00:12:33] Speaker 2: One more hour to wait and then we come back. [00:12:36] Speaker ?: Final check. [00:12:37] Speaker 2: I want to see what these guys look like now. And... Oh, hello. They still seem pretty chirpy. Yeah. A bit softer, but... I mean, yeah. Still didn't burst at all. No leaks. Nothing. I gotta admit, I'm a bit surprised. [00:12:54] Speaker 5: Well, they might look intact, but that doesn't mean they are necessarily safe. Like, for example, we need to remember that these have been exposed for three hours. But how do they behave when you start playing with them? [00:13:05] Speaker 2: Oh, because normally I'll be grabbing them and squeezing them, right? Yeah. So, can they still withstand that kind of action? There's only one way to find out. Oh, yeah. Time for the squishy test. I guess I should swap to those set of gloves. Just so I don't get all the juices everywhere. I'm excited to do this. What's your guess? Will it or will it not burst? [00:13:30] Speaker 5: Let's find out. I'm curious to know what's going to happen. [00:13:34] Speaker 2: Let's start with the hardest one. This pink guy here. Yeah. Okay, ready? One, two, go. Wow, it feels like it's going to burst, but actually, no. It's still intact. Much, much softer than the original toy. [00:13:50] Speaker 5: With the higher temperature, the filling will start changing internally and then also the outer skin can soften. But it seems like they're still holding it together. [00:14:03] Speaker 2: Okay, now let's try this guy in orange. This is way more liquidy, so I'm pressing it softly. Now let's go harder. Surprisingly, also holding out. [00:14:18] Speaker 5: Okay. [00:14:19] Speaker 2: Okay, last guy. This red guy also looks a bit soft. Let's give it a try. One. Two. Three. Oh! Okay. [00:14:30] Speaker 5: There is something that you don't want to happen in your car or on your children. That was shocking. [00:14:37] Speaker 2: I was so confident after the first two that I didn't expect it to leap. What is it about the three toys that made this guy burst and not those two? [00:14:46] Speaker 5: One of the components is how thick the skin is. The other one is the type of filling. One variable that is the same is what we set up as the temperature. So 60 degrees throughout is the same condition in terms of heat that they all experience. So we can say that that was a fair comparison for all of them. [00:15:08] Speaker 2: The first two got me quite confident, so I was happily squeezing away and then poof. You know, so that was a bit of a shock. But wow, it just shows you that even though they seem safe, they may not always be safe. Even though it withstood the heat test, so to speak, it didn't withstand the squeeze test. I can literally feel the warmth of the liquid on my hands here, even with the gloves on. So here's the thing, a young kid comes back to the car, has been parked in the sun for the last, you know, four or five hours, and like woohoo, here's my squishy toy. I mean, what do parents have to be mindful of then? [00:15:40] Speaker 5: The parents should try to avoid and stop the child from picking the squishy right away. So one suggestion would be to let it cool down first, and then get the parents to actually take the toy instead of letting the child go for it. [00:15:57] Speaker 2: And especially if you're playing with the toy and you're like poof, it hits you in the face. How bad can it get? [00:16:01] Speaker 5: Depending on whether it goes on the eyes or on the skin, it could be as gentle as like some skin irritation. Or it could be more severe, it could be causing burns or like long term effects. [00:16:18] Speaker 2: We've squeezed them and heated them, and now it's time to see if they contain harmful chemicals. The lab test results are in. 18 squishy toys, two chemical concerns that have triggered recalls overseas for benzene and phthalates. Let's find out what the lab actually found. [00:16:55] Speaker 6: Based on the result, these 18 toys don't have any benzene detected. Oh, OK. Among the 18 toys we have tested, six of them have found restricted valet. [00:17:10] Speaker 2: These six here? These are different types of plasticizers. Chemicals added to make plastic softer and more flexible. [00:17:27] Speaker 6: Based on Singapore requirement, there's a permissible limit of 1000 mg/kg. Right. For DHP, DPP, all the detected values are below the permissible limit, which is acceptable. OK. DINP is detected in two of the toys. One of the toys is detected as 1726 mg/kg, which is above the 1000 mg/kg permissible limit. [00:17:57] Speaker 2: And why is such high amounts of DINP bad for the child? [00:18:00] Speaker 6: Based on the scientific studies, DINP may affect the children's reproductive development as well as their liver function. [00:18:09] Speaker 2: So, for the child playing with the toy with the high DINP, does that mean they are already at risk? [00:18:15] Speaker 6: There is no conclusion about if they are in risk at the moment because the result only telling the concentration of DINP inside the toys. However, we don't know the exact amount of dosage of intake of the DINP. For example, the way how the children are playing with it, does he or she put it in the mouth? After playing with it, does he or she wash the hands before intaking other food? It may affect the actual dosage intake. But we would say the children may have a high potential of exposure to the DINP. [00:18:54] Speaker 2: This is a sample which was found to contain DINP at about 1.7 times the permissible limit. So, this pink toy here came from Mishka's own collection. I'm going to meet up with her and her mum to tell them what we found out about it. Remember the other day I took away some of your toys, one that looks just like this? Yeah. And I sent it to a lab for testing. Yeah. Now it looks like this. [00:19:21] Speaker 3: Is it broken? [00:19:23] Speaker 2: It's more than broken. We had to cut it up, find out what's inside, test the material. And we found out there's something called DINP, Dicinonyl Phthalate. [00:19:33] Speaker 3: What's DINP? [00:19:35] Speaker 2: It's a phthalate that is used to make this material more flexible but also softer. There is a permissible limit as in like there's a certain amount that is allowed in each toy. And it's 1,000 milligrams per one kilogram. Your toy had 1,726, which means it's about 1.7 times the limit. This phthalate, if you have too much exposure to it, it may affect the way a young kid grows, maybe even their liver. So, it could have some harmful effects on the body. I was surprised. [00:20:04] Speaker 7: I thought like squishy toy, it's safe for kids. [00:20:08] Speaker 2: So, now that you've heard about this toy, how do you feel? [00:20:10] Speaker 3: I feel like shock and surprised that there is chemical inside. And that's not safe for me. And like thinking about what is inside other squishies. [00:20:28] Speaker 7: We bought it from Kitty Palace like a few months ago. [00:20:32] Speaker 2: Will you still buy her squishy toys? [00:20:34] Speaker 7: I can't say no because she will save money to buy her own toys. Oh really? Wow, okay. We will be careful next time. Check the importers or read some information. Yeah? Yeah. And then make sure that it's safe for kids, especially for Mishka. Because she usually sleeps with the toys. [00:20:57] Speaker 2: What are you going to tell your friends about squishy toys? Now that you know some of them may be a little bit dangerous. [00:21:03] Speaker 3: I'll tell my friends that before they buy it, they have to check if they are safe and they have been tested. I still want to play with my squishy toys except this one. [00:21:18] Speaker 2: Oh, this one. So this one actually is exactly the same as this one. Yeah. So what shall we do with it? [00:21:24] Speaker 3: Throw in the dustbin. [00:21:25] Speaker 2: Okay, we'll throw them away. [00:21:27] Speaker 3: Bye-bye. [00:21:30] Speaker 2: Talking Point wrote to Kitty Palace about the lab results. The company declined our request for an on-camera interview. But in a statement, it said it immediately pulled the toy from its store. So it quarantined the stock and is now offering refunds. The company also said that they are working with their suppliers to make sure all its products comply with regulations. And that's good since we rarely pay attention to the warnings on squishy toy boxes. And maybe it's time we should because it usually says things like, Don't use excessive force or don't leave them in the car under direct sunlight. Check for tears or leaks. And there is a good reason for that. Christmas is around the corner. And squishies are going to end up in a lot of these stockings. And after this investigation, well, I won't be judging one just by how cute it looks, but more from what they're made of.