DETROIT – Experts say spray bottles are to blame for 40 percent of injuries involving cleaning fluids in children.
"Spray bottles are a very common product. All of our household cleaners really come in spray bottle form and if you think about what's under your own kitchen sink, you probably have more than one spray bottle," said a researcher from Nationwide Children's Hospital.
While conducting a national study into the safety of household cleaners, researchers, discovered that while overall poisonings from household cleaners were down 46 percent, injuries from spray bottles were not.
They decided to do something about that statistic by designing the first spray bottle top with a two-trigger system.
Adult hands are big enough to control both triggers but young children have a hard time understanding how the bottles works.
"Our technology has the potential to prevent more than 6,000 injuries each year which is 18 injuries a day. We took the basics findings from our study and we were able to translate that into something that would potentially reduce injuries and save lives," said researchers.
The research team has applied for a patent and are now looking for partners to help them produce and distribute the child-resistant spray bottles.
They hope to have them on store shelves and in homes in the next couple of years.