Safety warning over coloured sunglasses

Optical practices selling sunglasses with coloured lenses are being advised to check their stock for safety markings after Trading Standards found over half the pairs sampled failed to meet regulations.
The sunglasses in question, with blue, green and red lenses, are popular among fashion-conscious high street shoppers. However, many in circulation are believed to be illegal.
They must be marked with the CE European safety standard or the British Standard Mark BS EN 1836:1997. Trading Standards is set to crack down on vendors found to be selling these sunglasses.
The action comes after tests showed that coloured sunglasses failed to protect the eye from damaging ultraviolet light and in some cases increased the risk.
South Lanarkshire CouncilÕs Trading Standards service found that 57 per cent of 28 sunglasses tested failed to meet official standards. They discovered that one in five let in more than 5 per cent of the most harmful UV rays, one quarter did not comply with their filter category and one third were incorrectly labelled.
Manager for the area, Peter Sherry, said that Trading Standards officers would not visit optical practices, unless they were to investigate a consumer report. ÔIn that case, we would obtain samples for testing. If we found the sunglasses were breaking safety regulations, we would act accordingly.Õ
Mr Sherry said: ÔWe are issuing advice to the public to look for higher quality sunglasses. It is particularly aimed at market traders and importers Ð they are the ones we believe to be involved. I would urge anyone who sees sunglasses on sale that do not carry the required marking and donÕt offer UV protection not to buy them and to call Trading Standards.Õ
The campaign coincides with Guide Dogs for the Blind AssociationÕs ÔOne VisionÕ initiative, which includes warnings on unsuitable sunglasses (see page 8).