(Source: Inside Retail Philippines | 29 August 2016)
Manila jewellers have been warned they face jail if caught selling potentially lethal silver-cleaners.
In a strongly-worded edict from mayor Joseph Estrada, retailers have been told they will be fined up to 5000 pesos or sentenced to prison for up to a year if they are caught selling silver jewelry cleaners containing lethal cyanide compound.
Surprise raids are planned in partnership with the police and city health officials.
“We will continuously monitor these stores to make sure that silver cleaners are not sold for household use,” he said on Saturday. “It’s supposed to be for limited industrial use only. Violators will be duly penalized,” Estrada warned.
The warning follows the discovery of cleaning products containing cyanide by lobby group EcoWaste Collection whose members were able to buy the products – banned in the Manila – from shops in three different parts of the city.
The ban followed the deaths of teenaged Filipinos in 2013 and 2015.
Estrada described the cleaners as “lethal” and promised to end their availability through retail stores.
“We will enforce the city ordinance against the selling of these cyanide-containing silver cleaners, and the silver polish itself, we will get rid of it immediately.”
Read more: https://insideretail.ph/manila-jewellers-face-jail-over-silver-cleaner-sales/