Procter & Gamble has recalled over 8 million bags of Tide, Gain, Ace and Ariel laundry detergent packets sold in Canada and the U.S. over a defect in the products’ child-resistant packaging.
According to recent notices from P&G and product-safety regulators in Canada and the U.S., the outer packaging that prevents easy access to the liquid laundry detergent pods can split open near the zipper track, which poses serious risks to children and others who may ingest them, besides possible skin or eye injuries.
There have been no confirmed injuries directly tied to the defect so far. During the period when the recalled products were sold, there were four reports of children accessing the laundry packets in the U.S., including three ingestion cases. P&G and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said whether these pods actually came from the recalled bags is still unknown.
The recall affects selected batches of Tide, Gain, Ace and Ariel laundry detergents that were produced between September 2023 and February 2024 and sold at major retail outlets including Walmart, Target, CVS and Amazon.
The recalled products can be identified by lot code and vary in scent and size. About 8.2 million were sold in the U.S. and over 56,700 were sold in Canada.
Consumers who possess the recalled bags have been instructed to keep the products out of the reach and sight of children and contact Cincinnati-based P&G for total refund and replacement child-resistant bag to store the detergent, which remains safe to use for laundry purposes.
