Cadmium Instead of Silver and Toxic Clothing: Europe Prepares a Crackdown on Temu and Shein

The European Union is preparing to tighten controls on platforms such as Temu, Shein, AliExpress and TikTok Shop after independent laboratories found dangerous levels of toxic substances in products sold there — ranging from "forever chemicals" to cadmium sold in place of advertised silver. The trigger was a series of tests carried out by the environmental group Greenpeace and the British newspaper The Sunday Times, which bought and tested dozens of products from these platforms.

How the Platforms Dodged Responsibility

Until now, these platforms have fended off complaints by claiming they merely provide a marketplace for thousands of independent sellers. When a product failed to meet European standards, responsibility usually fell on some hard-to-reach seller located outside the EU. "A whole range of platforms present themselves to buyers as ordinary online stores, yet bear no responsibility themselves — that falls instead on an unknown, and often fictitious, seller somewhere in China," said Jan Vetíška, executive director of the E-Commerce Association. According to him, among the largest Asian marketplaces most popular with European shoppers, besides the Chinese platforms Temu and Shein, are AliExpress and the rapidly growing TikTok Shop — all of which attract buyers with cheap goods shipped directly from Asian manufacturers and sellers.

A Jacket 3,115 Times Over the Limit

Laboratory tests confirmed the scale of the problem. This year, Greenpeace bought 30 items of clothing on the German version of Shein's website, similar to products it had already flagged before. An independent laboratory found excessive levels of harmful substances in 25 of the 30 samples. The worst offender was a jacket: the concentration of so-called "forever chemicals" (PFAS) in it exceeded the permitted limit by 3,115 times. Phthalates, lead, cadmium and formaldehyde were also found above the limit. "Shein promises the European Parliament it protects consumers, but in reality keeps selling heavily contaminated products," said Greenpeace expert Moritz Jäger-Rochko. After the first inspection, Shein claimed it had removed the problematic items from sale. But according to Greenpeace, only the specific listing numbers disappeared — similar items soon reappeared for sale under different names or from other sellers.

Cadmium Instead of Silver

A similar picture emerged in the United Kingdom. Journalists at The Sunday Times commissioned an inspection of a ring bought on Amazon for £2.99 — roughly 85 crowns — which the seller advertised as pure silver. Testing showed it was actually 92% cadmium, even though British regulations allow no more than 0.01% of this metal. Another item, a bracelet sold via TikTok Shop, was found to be one-third toxic metal. The items were tested for the newspaper by the Birmingham Assay Office.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz