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Health Canada

The Product Safety Program is designed to prevent product-related death, illness and injury. The Program:

• Regulates and monitors compliance for the advertisement, sale and importation of hazardous or potentially hazardous products that are not covered by other legislation.
• Provides clients with information.

Charcoal is now a restricted product (Schedule I Part II) under the Hazardous Products Act. Charcoal briquettes in bags that are advertised, imported or sold in Canada are required to display a label warning of the potential hazards of the product. Health Canada considered changes to these regulations to promote safer use of the product in light of concern related to the potential for harmful exposure to carbon monoxide gas and poisoning through use or misuse in confined spaces.

Our study research:

• Explored consumers' reaction to the labelling options.
• Documented findings and present recommendations on a course of action.

The research was conducted in two waves:

• The first was to identify the incidence of use of charcoal briquettes and further to estimate the incidence of improper use or misuse of the product in Canada. This research involved insertion of a few questions in our quarterly mailing to our Canadian Family Opinion panel. Results from the 14,000 returns (65% response rate) from households identified use and potential misuse of the product.
• The second involved in-person interviews in mall sites in three locations across Canada (Québec (both Québec City and Montréal), Toronto and Vancouver) between November 29 and December 18, 2000. In total 450 interviews were conducted (150 in each site). Respondents were asked questions about their charcoal briquette use and label reading behaviour. They were asked specific questions about the likelihood of misuse of charcoal briquettes. They were shown a "mock up" of a randomly selected labeling option and asked questions to identify the likelihood of misuse of charcoal briquettes after reading this label. Next respondents were provided more information about the hazards related to the use of charcoal briquettes. They were shown mock ups of all labels and asked to rate them in terms of the degree of warning each provided about the hazards just discussed.