The recall that created more damage than the product
On 15 November 2025, MBIE told parents to stop using four Kmart Anko-brand coloured sand products immediately after laboratory testing detected tremolite asbestos, an amphibole fibre with a strong association with cancer. Kmart had sold 67,000 units of the products nationwide. Pink Magic Sand had been on shelves since 2015, a decade-long exposure window for a children’s toy.
Consumers did what they were told. Christchurch father Joe Baxter, who had three tubs of the sand in his house, removed carpet from three-quarters of his home during the recall window. More than 120 schools and early childhood centres were using the recalled products. At least seven closed classrooms for specialist asbestos assessments.
Then, on 4 December 2025, Kmart cancelled the voluntary recall for three of the four products after its own testing found no asbestos. MBIE clarified that remedies would be limited to actions taken between 15 November and 4 December. Baxter was left with a gutted house and a retailer that wouldn’t return his calls.
Three weeks of uncertainty is three weeks too many
Baxter’s situation captures the core problem. One of his three tubs matched the recalled batch numbers. The other two sat in a grey zone. As he told RNZ in January 2026: “So there’s two-and-a-half, three weeks in which time what were we meant to do? Were we meant to leave our house contaminated?”
He attempted to contact Kmart multiple times without success. Consumer NZ’s head of research and advocacy Gemma Rasmussen said in November 2025 that Kmart “haven’t been particularly forthcoming” in its communications. For a retailer that sold 67,000 units of a product later found to contain asbestos, silence is not a communications strategy. It is a legal invitation.
Baxter is now pursuing Kmart through the Disputes Tribunal. He is unlikely to be the last.
Kmart owns the brand, so it owns the liability
This is not a case where a retailer can point upstream. The recalled sand was sold under Kmart’s in-house Anko brand, owned by Kmart Australia Ltd. Under the Consumer Guarantees Act, the brand owner carries manufacturer liability. MBIE was explicit in its recall notices: “If consumers have incurred losses such as clean-up costs, they may be able to obtain damages from the supplier under the Consumer Guarantees Act.”
The recall also expanded well beyond Kmart. By late November 2025, approximately 20 individual pots of sand from multiple brands were under recall. A fifth recall covered the MIKI Sand Art Set, with over 570 units sold nationwide. Craft sand in 15 different colours from dollar stores was added to the list. The contamination was not a single-product failure. It was a supply chain failure.
Cheap sourcing from quarries nobody tested
The Spinoff’s investigation in November 2025 traced the contamination to naturally occurring asbestos in quarried rock from China. Scientist Brian Oliver noted that sand from a beach would be unlikely to contain asbestos. The risk was in the sourcing decision itself.
Laura Gemmell of Eco Choice Aotearoa framed it directly: “They need to know what’s in that product, otherwise they shouldn’t be selling it.”
Similar products in Australia also tested positive, pointing to shared supply chains across the Tasman. The cost of pre-market testing is trivial next to the cost of recalling 67,000 units, closing classrooms, managing Disputes Tribunal claims, and absorbing months of reputational damage.
The trust model that lets contaminated products reach shelves
New Zealand’s product safety regime operates on a high-trust import model. Importers bear responsibility for verifying safety but are not required to prove it before sale. Rasmussen was blunt in November 2025: “There is a massive trust model in New Zealand and how effective that is, is questionable. We are relying on the honesty of suppliers and a lot of our standards are voluntary.”
She pointed to the EU’s government certification schemes, expanded chemical regulation, and supply chain traceability requirements as the benchmark New Zealand falls short of. On the enforcement model, she noted that “the enforcement and recall is happening once something’s landed on our shelves”, a reactive approach that means someone potentially gets hurt before anything happens.
What surprised her most was that it was Kmart, a retailer large enough to have “quite rigorous systems” precisely because the reputational and economic risk should be obvious.
The lesson for every importer and private-label retailer
Kmart’s asbestos sand saga is a case study in how quickly cheap sourcing becomes expensive. A cancelled recall does not cancel the costs consumers already incurred. A brand owner cannot deflect manufacturer liability. And a reactive safety regime means the legal and reputational consequences land on the retailer, not the regulator.
For the growing number of New Zealand retailers running private-label programmes sourced from low-cost international suppliers, the arithmetic is simple. Test before you sell, or budget for the Disputes Tribunal afterwards.
Sources
- RNZ: Kmart needs to be held accountable for asbestos in sand, shopper says (2026-01-13)
- RNZ: Kmart sand recall leaves Christchurch father footing the bill (2026-01-13)
- RNZ: Stop using them immediately – asbestos found in Kmart Magic Sand as recall expands (2025-11-15)
- RNZ: Kmart sold 67k units of potentially asbestos-laced play sand (2025-11-20)
- RNZ: When buying cheaper puts child safety in danger (2025-11-25)
- The Spinoff: How a chance lab finding sparked a national coloured sand recall (2025-11-21)