Inform
5 min read
Stop Buying on Autopilot. Start Asking Better Questions
Sylvia Luchian
CEO & Founder
A business I worked with once told me their procurement process for office supplies was “same as last year, plus whatever’s cheapest.” No review. No questions. Just a standing order and a credit card. It worked fine until it did not. That is what buying on autopilot looks like. And in November 2025, an entire country learned what it can cost.
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, Educational Colours Rainbow Sand, and Creatistics Coloured Sand, were found to contain tremolite 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 on shelves since 2020.2
Nobody questioned them. They were inexpensive, easy to order, and familiar. Tick, approve, reorder. For five years.
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 regulatory framework 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
Play silly games, win silly prizes.
The sand story is not really about 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 green light. 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” or “who else is paying for it?” In this case, the answer was testing, traceability, and supplier accountability, not to mention this nation’s future; our children.
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 the standard. The product changes. The supplier changes. The risk changes. The purchase order does not.
1. What am I actually buying? Not the product description on the invoice. 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.
2. What happens if this goes wrong? Every purchase carries risk. For low-cost, high-volume items, the risk is not the unit price. It is the consequence of failure at scale. A contaminated product in one classroom is a problem. A contaminated product in a thousand classrooms is a crisis.
3. When did I last check? If the answer is “when we first set up the account,” that is not a procurement process. That is a standing assumption. Markets shift, suppliers change hands, regulations tighten or loosed. A review cycle is not 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.
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
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission 2025, Customers warned of recalled children's sand due to asbestos risks, media release, 12 November, viewed 7 May 2026, https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/customers-warned-of-recalled-children%E2%80%99s-sand-due-to-asbestos-risks
Queensland Health 2025, Recall of children's coloured sand products with detection of asbestos, Queensland Health, Brisbane, 14 November, viewed 7 May 2026, https://www.health.qld.gov.au/newsroom/doh-media-releases/recall-of-childrens-coloured-sand-products-with-detection-of-asbestos
RNZ 2025, 'Some coloured asbestos sand traced to a particular quarry in China', RNZ, 20 November, viewed 7 May 2026, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/579526/some-coloured-asbestos-sand-traced-to-a-particular-quarry-in-china
SafeWork SA 2025, Products added to children's sand recall, safety alert, SafeWork SA, Adelaide, 10 December, viewed 7 May 2026, https://www.safework.sa.gov.au/news-and-alerts/safety-alerts/incident-alerts/2025/asbestos-concerns-prompt-childrens-sand-recall
SBS News 2025, 'Sudden closure of several Canberra schools after asbestos found in children's coloured sand', SBS News, 14 November, viewed 7 May 2026, 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, safety alert, WorkSafe Queensland, Brisbane, viewed 7 May 2026, https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/news-news-and-events/alerts/workplace-health-and-safety-alerts/2025/asbestos-in-coloured-sand-updated-at-12pm-16-november/asbestos-in-coloured-sand-updated
If you are not sure whether your buying process would catch your version of the sand problem, that is exactly the kind of conversation D1 Advisory is built for. Book a discovery call. No pitch. No pressure. Just a frank conversation about where your risk sits.
The coffee is on us. The jargon stays at the door.
Buying on autopilot is risky in any environment. In 2026, it’s particularly costly. The regulatory obligations sitting on Australian buyers have changed materially in the past eighteen months, and most of those changes carry consequences that small medium business (SMBs) owners are not always aware of.
Credentials are not proof. A CIPS membership and ten years of experience do not tell you what actually happened when the work was done. These case studies do.
Procurement has its own language. The definitions below are written for Australian SMB owners who need to understand these terms in practice, not for procurement professionals who already know them. Where a term has a formal procurement definition and a plain-language equivalent, both are given.
