School in St. Jerome, Que. forced to toss thousands of counterfeit solar eclipse glasses
CTV
A school in Saint-Jerome, Que. was forced to toss out thousands of counterfeit solar eclipse glasses that were purchased on Amazon.
A school in Saint-Jerome, Que. was forced to toss out thousands of counterfeit solar eclipse glasses that were purchased on Amazon.
The Riviere-du-Nord school services centre confirmed that the 3,700 glasses that Ecole Polyvalente Sainte-Jerome purchased needed to be thrown out after students and teachers noticed that some glasses did not have the same opacity as others.
"They were not all counterfeit," said service centre communications officer Nadyne Brochu. "In the batch received, as the school began distributing them to students, teachers noticed that some glasses did not have the same level of opacity. When in doubt, they did some research and found the supplier's notice explaining that its product had been counterfeited."
Brochu said the school contacted the Montreal Science Centre and made the decision to toss the glasses out as a safety measure, "to avoid the risks associated with non-compliant glasses."
"This decision was reinforced by the fact that it was impossible to check every pair of glasses received," said Brochy.
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) said in March that counterfeit glasses are ones made by one manufacturer with a fraudulent name and artwork printed on them.
"Until recently, the only counterfeit products we knew of were cardboard-frame eclipse glasses made by an unidentified factory in China but printed with "Mfg. by: American Paper Optics" (APO) on them," the AAS said on its website. "APO is one of the major U.S. manufacturers of safe solar viewers and prints its name and address on its eclipse glasses, whereas the Chinese copycat products have APO's name but not its address."
