US home products giant Procter & Gamble has impregnated the outside layer of its laundry packets with a bitter taste in a bid to reduce potential child detergent poisoning.
The move comes as new rules covering laundry products and packaging came into effect last month in Europe and which could soon follow suit in the US.
Single-dose laundry detergent packets have soared in popularity in recent years thanks to their ease of use compared with large containers of liquid or powdered detergents.
But young children can mistake single-dose packets of the highly concentrated detergent for sweets, which can lead to accidental ingestion and poisoning.
Cincinnati-based P&G said the new bitter taste is being added to its Tide, Gain and Ariel brands of laundry packets in North America this autumn.
P&G said designing the packet to allow for a delayed release of the product “will help give a child the chance to spit the packet out”.
And the compression standards are designed to withstand the average squeezing pressure of a small child, the company added.
“This is the latest in a series of interventions in Europe, where incident rates have also dropped in countries like Italy, the UK and Ireland,” P&G said.
While the firm did not expand on the sort of additive used in the new packs, P&G said it was bringing new standards being enforced in Europe to the US.
New European Commission rules covering laundry detergents came into effect on 1 June which require “an adverse agent” that “elicits oral repulsive behaviour within a maximum time of six seconds, in case of accidental oral exposure”.
The packet also must retain liquid content for at least 30 seconds when placed in water at 20°C, and pass compression testing.