On 12 November 2025, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission issued a national recall for coloured sand products sold in schools, childcare centres, and retail stores across Australia. The products, sold under brands including Kadink Sand, EducationalColours Rainbow Sand, and Creatistics Coloured Sand, were found to containtremolite asbestos. A second type, chrysotile, was later confirmed in additional products.[1]
These were not specialist materials. They were cheap, brightly coloured craft sand. The kind used in kindergarten art classes and sensory play tables. They were sold by major retailers including Officeworks, Woolworths, Kmart, and Target. They had been onshelves since 2020.[2]
Nobody questioned them. They were inexpensive, easy to order, and familiar. Tick, approve, reorder. For fiveyears.
The contamination was not found through any planned testing programme. A Brisbane laboratory discovered traces of asbestos by accident while calibrating new equipment. Under the regulatoryframework at the time, coloured sand was classified as a low-risk import. No asbestos-free certification was required at the border. The responsibility for product testing sat with suppliers under existing Australian regulation.[3]
Within days of the recall, authorities across Australia moved quickly to respond. The ACT took a precautionary approach, temporarily closing affected schools for decontamination. Tasmania conducted audits across approximately 200 schools and temporarily closed around 50. Other jurisdictions, guided by health advice that the risk was low, directed schools to remove the products while remaining open.Over 1,000 schools and early learning centres across Australia reported having used the products.[4]
As the saying goes if you play silly games, you will win silly prizes.
What This Actually Tells You About Procurement
The sand story is not reallyabout sand. It is about what happens when buying decisions are treated as administrative tasks instead of risk decisions.
A cheap price tag is not a greenlight. It is a question. When something costs very little, the question is not “why wouldn’t we buy it?” The question is “what are we not paying for?” In this case, the answer was testing, traceability, and supplier accountability.
This pattern plays out across every industry. Businesses buy software without reviewing the terms. They sign maintenance contracts without benchmarking the market. They reorder consumables year after year without asking whether the supplier is still meeting thestandard. The product changes. The supplier changes. The risk changes. The purchase order does not.
Three Questions to Stop Buying on Autopilot
- What am I actually buying? Not the product description on theinvoice. What are you getting, who made it, and what standards is it held to?If you cannot answer that, your procurement process has a gap.
- What happens if this goes wrong? Every purchase carries risk. Forlow-cost, high-volume items, the risk is not the unit price. It is theconsequence of failure at scale. A contaminated product in one classroom is aproblem. A contaminated product in a thousand classrooms is a crisis.
- When did I last check? If the answer is “when we first set up theaccount,” that is not a procurement process. That is a standing assumption.Markets shift, suppliers change hands, regulations tighten. A review cycle isnot bureaucracy. It is protection.
KEY TAKEAWAY: If what you are doing is approving cheap and easy-to-order materials without question, you are not managing procurement. You are outsourcing risk to the lowest bidder and hoping for the best. Hope is not a strategy.
The Bigger Picture
Since the recall, the Australian Border Force has moved to reclassify children’s coloured sand as a high-risk import, requiring proof of asbestos-free status before entering the country. That is a constructive structural response to an emerging risk, and it demonstrates how regulatory frameworks evolve when new information comes to light.[5]
Most businesses will never deal with asbestos in their supply chain. That is not the point. The point is that every business has a version of the sand problem: a purchase that looks simple, costs little, and sits below the radar of anyone with the authority or expertise to question it. Until the day it does not.
The question is whether your procurement process catches it before that day, or after.
It is worth noting that health authorities assessed the direct risk from these products as very low. The response across government, health, and education sectors was measured and proportionate to the advice available. The broader lesson for procurement is not about criticising that response. It is about recognising that the gap in this story sat further upstream, in the buying and importing process, well before any product reached a classroom.[6]
Bibliography
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) 2025, Customers warned of recalled children’s sand due to asbestos risks, media release, 12 November. Available at: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/customers-warned-of-recalled-children%E2%80%99s-sand-due-to-asbestos-risks
- SafeWork SA 2025, UPDATED: Products added to children’s sand recall, safety alert, 10 December. Available at: https://www.safework.sa.gov.au/news-and-alerts/safety-alerts/incident-alerts/2025/asbestos-concerns-prompt-childrens-sand-recall
- RNZ 2025, ‘Some coloured asbestos sand traced to a particular quarry in China’, 20 November. Available at: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/579526/some-coloured-asbestos-sand-traced-to-a-particular-quarry-in-china
- SBS News 2025, ‘Sudden closure of several Canberra schools after asbestos found in children’s coloured sand’, 14 November. Available at: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/sudden-closure-of-several-canberra-schools-after-asbestos-found-in-childrens-coloured-sand/02ridnmhf
- WorkSafe Queensland 2025, Asbestos in coloured sand – updated, safety alert. Available at: https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/news-and-events/alerts/workplace-health-and-safety-alerts/2025/asbestos-in-coloured-sand-updated-at-12pm-16-november/asbestos-in-coloured-sand-updated
- Queensland Health 2025, Recall of children’s coloured sand products with detection of asbestos, newsroom, 14 November. Available at: https://www.health.qld.gov.au/newsroom/doh-media-releases/recall-of-childrens-coloured-sand-products-with-detection-of-asbestos
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