All the affected products are manufactured in China, where items containing less than 5% of asbestos can be labelled asbestos-free.

WTF???

It’s kind of surprising this sort of incident doesn’t happen more often. Asbestos is a form of silicate crystal (like quartz) that forms in long thin strands. It’s very common:

Silicate minerals are rock-forming minerals made up of silicate groups. They are the largest and most important class of minerals and make up approximately 90 percent of Earth’s crust

It’s so dangerous because it’s basically like microscopic glass needles. Because they’re silicate crystals they’re chemically inert - nothing in your body can break them down, so once they’re inside you they tend to stay there.

This is one of the reasons you shouldn’t just go exploring unfamiliar caves. They could literally be full of asbestos, which you could disturb just by walking around. If you don’t know what you’re looking for you might never notice it, it just looks like rock:

There is a global sand shortage. Not that we’re actually running out of sand in general, but that the easiest to collect sources of high-quality sand are mostly used up, and what there is on the market gets bought up by electronics companies to make your smartphone screen, and then glass companies to make windows and lab equipment and bakeware, and then concrete companies. I assume the material that ends up in children’s products is cheap, low-grade stuff that nobody else wants to buy.

Haven’t there been similar cases in Australia recently?

Find everyone involved and make them eat their product.

Asbestos is a rock so it doesn’t seem too surprising it can be found in sand.