LETHAL GLASS IN EUROPEAN BUILDINGS
The Standard governing certification of Toughened Safety Glass in Europe (and other jurisdictions) is ISO 12540:2017.
ISO 12540 allows lethal glass to be certified as Safety Glass and installed in buildings throughout Europe in locations which are most at risk of incurring human impact.
The situation in Europe is similar to that in Australia and the USA where Standards Committees have been subverted by commercial interests to the detriment of millions of consumers who are exposed to lethal glass in their homes, schools and workplaces.
The relevant ISO committee recklessly and cynically rejected an agreed-on draft amendment to the pendulum impact test in ISO 12540 which would have limited the length any particle in fractured toughened glass to 100 mm maximum, a length which in the case of glass shards such as shown on this page, is certainly lethal. The pendulum impact test, which is used worldwide to classify whether toughened glass is safety glass, does not consider particle length at all allowing lethal glass to be certified, supplied and installed.
A document which describes in detail how, despite all the evidence, and previous agreement, members of the ISO Committee refused to rectify the lethal Standard can be viewed HERE.
It is critical that this situation be remedied by adopting 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 Tempered Safety Glass. This method is specified in the UN ECE R43 Standard (and in AS2080:2019) to assure that tempered automotive glass breaks safely, and is accepted globally for that application.
If you live in the European Union and want to register your response to this unconscionable situation, you should contact your National Building Minister or Regulator and demand that urgent steps be taken to amend the ISO 12450 Standard.
You may also wish to consult the instructions referred to on the page relating to the similar situation in Australia to assess whether there is any toughened glass in your home or school or workplace which is lethal, and if so, how you can make it safe.
You can also address an email to the EU Commissioner responsible for consumer affairs, and to the Secretary of the ISO Committee responsible for ISO 12540-2017 ‘Tempered soda lime silicate safety glass’.
If the safety of your family, friends, work colleagues and the community is of concern to you, you should forward this page to your contacts using email and social media so that this issue becomes widely recognised, putting pressure on the relevant government authorities to rectify the situation.
Suppliers of toughened safety glass for installation in Europe are urged to ensure that product that they supply is safe and 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 defective ISO 12540:2017 Standard.
Consumers should not accept installation of unsafe glass in their homes, schools and workplaces.