Cotton swabs sold on Chinese e-commerce platform teeming with germs, warns Seoul

Cotton swabs sold on Temu that contained germs above the safety standard [SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT]

Cotton swabs sold on a Chinese e-commerce website contained about 37 times more germs than the safety standard allowed, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Wednesday.

The city government shared the result of its safety inspection conducted on 95 personal care and single-use products, including single-use cups, straws, napkins and cotton swabs, sold on Temu and Shein from April 25 to June 14.

Among the inspected items were 10 cotton swab products, six of which contained germs far exceeding domestic safety standards, with contamination levels ranging from at least 440 colony-forming units per gram to as high as 11,000 colony-forming units per gram.

The country’s safety standard is capped at 300 colony-forming units per gram.

Using contaminated cotton swabs can cause various skin conditions, such as eczema, the city government said.

These contaminated products, all sold on Temu, had wooden sticks instead of plastic ones.

Three paper straw products sold on Shein also contained non-volatile substances migrating into food between 196 milligrams per liter and 1,300 milligrams per liter. The overall migration limit for such substances in the country is 30 milligrams per liter.

The city government has asked these online websites to halt the sale of these products and asked related authorities, such as the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, to limit public access.

The city government has been cracking down on harmful products on major Chinese cross-border shopping platforms, including AliExpress, Shein and Temu, and has been sharing lists of these products on its website since the last week of April. The safety inspections will continue, expanding to categories such as cosmetics and apparel.

Consumers can also file reports with the Seoul Electronic Commerce Center or the 120 Dansan Call Center.

The inspections came in response to growing safety concerns regarding products sold on these platforms, given the expanding presence of Chinese e-commerce companies in Korea.

In February, the number of monthly active AliExpress users in Korea reached 8.18 million, making it the second-largest e-commerce company after Coupang. Temu also became Korea's third-largest e-commerce platform in March, surpassing 11Street, according to data analysis company WiseApp-Retail.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]