LETHAL GLASS IN AUSTRALIAN BUILDINGS
In Australia (and New Zealand), homes, schools and workplaces have glass installed in hazardous locations, such as doors (including patio doors), windows and shower screens where the glass is likely to be subject to human impact (mainly by energetic children and teenagers).
Building Regulations in Australia (and common sense) require that such glass must break safely so that cutting and piercing injuries are minimised. According to these regulations, safety glass must be certified as complying with AS2208:2023– Safety glazing materials in buildings, which purports to ensure it minimises cutting and piercing injuries.
Critically Flawed Test Procedure
However, the test procedure used to certify toughened safety glass by AS2208 is not fit for purpose insofar as it allows the certification of glass which does not break safely, but instead generates dangerous long spear like shards which can be lethal if they cut or pierce persons who come into contact with them. An image of such shards appears on this page.
Consequences
Most glass installed in hazardous locations is toughened glass 4mm, 5mm or 6mm thick. From tests carried out over a period of years, it is indisputably proven that 4, 5 and 6mm toughened safety glass can pass the tests in AS 2208 but nevertheless break into dangerous shards. It is estimated that of the certified 4mm toughened safety glass (most commonly installed in domestic windows and patio doors and side panels) over 95% is likely to be potentially lethal; for 5mm more than 80% and for 6mm, more than 60% would be potentially lethal.
Kidsafe has published a Position Paper which documents tests demonstrating the lethal attributes of such glass, and calling for the AS2208 Standard to be amended by Standards Australia so that certified safety glass is safe for use in hazardous locations.
Examples of the consequences of the lethal toughened glass installed in millions of homes, schools and workplaces in Australia can be seen in the serious injury of a child in Perth and the death of a young man in Singapore. It is relevant to note that the Singapore Safety Glass Standard explicitly states that it is based on the Australian Standard.
A recently published paper “Ensuring that safety glass is safe” provides background, detail and context to the information on this page and also presents data sourced from the Victorian Injury Surveillance unit (VISU) which reports that 2947 hospital treated injuries related to glass windows, doors and shower screens were recorded in emergency wards of Victorian public hospitals from 2015 to 2021. It is reasonable to extrapolate this by population to imply that there are likely to have been about 15000 such injuries in Australia in the same period. Furthermore, the paper articulates the legal obligations of building surveyors to ensure the fitness for purpose of safety glass, citing a judicial finding in a specific court case. Obligations in regard to fitness for purpose applies also to glass manufacturers, suppliers and installers who cannot rely on a subverted Standard to protect them from the consequences of supplying unsafe glass.
Effective Test Procedure
In 2009, a paper was published which sets out the results and conclusions drawn from a thorough systematic test program carried out by the official Working Group of Standards Australia Committee BD-7, tasked with reviewing AS/NZS 2208. The results and conclusions of this program support the adoption of a simple test which assures that certified safety glass does not generate lethal shards when broken. That simple test involves fracturing a test sample near its centre and ensuring that no area of the glass generates lethal shards, by counting the number of particles in a 50mm square in the area of coarsest fracture and ensuring that the count is at least 40 for the glass to be certified as Toughened Safety Glass. This method is used in the UN ECE R43 Standard to assure that toughened automotive glass breaks safely, and is accepted globally for that application.
The continuing supply and installation of lethal toughened glass in Australia (and other jurisdictions who rely on the integrity of Australian Standards) is the direct result of certain members of Committee BD-7 preventing the adoption of this effective test procedure, validated by its own Working Group, and globally mandated for certifying automotive toughened safety glass.
Failure to Remedy by Standards Australia, Government and Regulators
Standards Australia have been aware of this situation for a period of years, but its flawed processes and procedures have allowed certain interests to obstruct simple amendment to AS/NZS 2208 so that lethal glass is no longer able to be certified. The big players of the glass industry have been fully aware of this for years, and despite this knowledge (which they have not shared with industry associations they purport to represent) continue to supply such glass. Details of this situation were provided in Submission 68 to the Australian Senate Inquiry into Non-conforming building products.
To view this submission and the supporting attachments select Submission 68 at https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Economics/Non-conforming_products/Submissions.
The defective AS2208:2023 Standard remains the document that allows certification, supply and installation of lethal product in Australia and New Zealand. The ACCC and the ABCB, Worksafe and the Building Ministers’ Forum (BMF) have been approached to act, but have declined to do so, deferring to the unfettered power of Standards Australia.
StandardsWatch Incorporated demands that our elected representatives be answerable to consumers, and effect change to ensure that the regulatory framework protects the public as it purports to do.
Standards Australia is not subject to any oversight whatsoever, and despite its declarations to the contrary, remains aloof to its responsibilities to the Australian public on the issue of safety glass and other Standards.
This situation and its consequences demand change in the processes of Standards Australia as proposed elsewhere on this website, and in the effectiveness of government and regulatory oversight which currently are non-existent. Elected Ministers (State and Federal) and their delegated Regulators have for years left consumers exposed to the consequent dangers of lethal cutting and piercing injuries.
Consumer Action
Consumers should check the glass in their homes and workplaces to identify potentially dangerous glass, and mitigate the risk using these instructions.
Teachers and employees everywhere should insist that their workplaces audit the glass installed in doors, windows, partitions and other situations nominated in AS/NZS 1288 as requiring safety glass, to ensure that no installed lethal glass remains accessible.
StandardsWatch encourages consumers to lobby their local member of Parliament (State and Federal), the ACCC, Worksafe, talkback radio and Building Ministers to demand that the Standard be amended to ensure that glass in buildings is safe, and that the processes and procedures of Standards Australia are transparent and subject to public scrutiny. Approaching Standards Australia is likely to be a waste of time as they answer to nobody.
Please email the ACCC, Worksafe and the Building Ministers’ Forum to request they effectively regulate so that the glass industry ceases supplying lethal glass to homes, schools and workplaces, and that they demand that Standards Australia rectifies AS/NZS2208. Use this email link to demand urgent change.
You are also encouraged to write letters to the editors of newspapers and call talkback radio to raise this issue so it is widely ventilated in the media. This link gives the contact details for the radio stations around Australia.
Consumers are encouraged to forward this page to all their personal and work contacts by email, Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media so that the public becomes aware of the dangers, and as many people as possible engage in lobbying the appropriate authorities to effect urgent amendment to the defective Standard.
Consumers should not accept installation of unsafe glass in their homes, schools and workplaces.
Glass and Building Industry Action
Suppliers of toughened safety glass for installation in Australia are urged to ensure that product that they supply is fit for purpose.
Installers, builders and building certifiers should insist that glass being installed in buildings is safe and fit for purpose, irrespective of it being certified to the current defective AS/NZS 2208:1996 Standard.
AWA-AGGA Ltd
AWA-AGGA Ltd (“AGWA”) is the recently constituted body combining the AWA (Australian Windows Association) and AGGA (Australian Glass and Glazing Association).
AGWA, on its website, endorses the supply and installation of fit for purpose glass and windows. Consequently, it is incumbent on AGWA to insist that their members comply by ceasing and desisting from supplying and/or installing lethally dangerous glass. Furthermore, it is incumbent on the Board of Directors of AGWA to direct their representatives on the BD-7 Committee of Standards Australia to insist that the Committee urgently amend the point of impact in the fragmentation test for certifying toughened safety glass (to the AS/NZS 2208 Standard) from near the edge to the centre of the panel, so that the test result ensures that certified glass is fit for use, and not lethal.
For the record, the representatives of AGGA on the BD-7 Committee (with the support of the Committee Chairman) were the main advocates for unconscionably preventing such change to the AS/NZS 2208 Standard (and procuring other technically incorrect and dangerous outcomes in the AS 1288 Standard) for a period in excess of a decade. Their conduct not only amounts to reckless endangerment of men, women and especially children, but also will result in the reputation of the glass and glazing industry being called into question.
The need for urgent AGWA Board action to protect consumers and to ensure that AGWA representatives on Australian Standards Committees act in the public interest and the industry’s interest is self-evident.
Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB)
It is incumbent upon the ABCB to urgently amend the NCC (National Construction Code) to prevent the continuing installation of lethal glass in buildings by regulating that toughened glass 6 mm or less in thickness which is certified to AS2208:1996 is not acceptable as a safety glass for the purposes of AS 1288.