This is a direct result of lax regulations and enforcement, and lack of mandatory regulatory approval of products before sale by uniformly applying the precautionary principle.
It's a difficult but necessary problem to solve through constant vigilance.
> Researchers bought 81 pairs of in-ear and over-ear headphones, either on the market in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Austria, or from the online marketplaces Shein and Temu, and took them for laboratory analysis, testing for a range of harmful chemicals.
Oh, Shein and Temu. They forgot Amazon. I wonder why ?
How far back in terms of manufacturing does this go? Is this new or does it go all the way back to the old foam earpad headphones? The article doesn't say how old the headphones they tested were.
It'd be nice to know to have some idea how long we've all been exposed.
ok, simple facts, you dont get smooshy stuff cheap, without "pastisizers", which tend to be volitile, all on your head.
there has been wave after wave of plastisizers bieng banned from food containers, water bottles, and other human contact stuff.
but hey, it gets worse, as in certain products there is a requirement for soft smooshy stuff that is "fire resistant", which lead as a additive works to provide, without making the plastic too hard, the white dust from old crumbling plastic of these types is
lead oxide, bad mojo
It's a difficult but necessary problem to solve through constant vigilance.