Is there a good way to be kept up-to-date with climbing gear recalls?

Question

In the last years, there were a few occasions when companies would put out recalls on their climbing gear due to manufacturing defects. For example, Black Diamond recalled some improperly riveted carabiners and they have a list of all their product recalls since 2000. Usually, I read about any recalls in climbing magazines, but it is easy to miss new ones.

Since I don't own only Black Diamond gear, I wonder: Are there any sources that list all product recalls of major climbing gear manufacturers over the last few years?

Answer 1

I think one of the most comprehensive lists is maintained by the UIAA:

https://www.theuiaa.org/safety-standards/recalls/

EDIT3: It seems to be working fine again.

EDIT2: Currently there are no entries present for 2017 and 2018. After contacting them, they told me that the database is under construction and due to technical reasons the data from this period cannot be displayed right now.

Answer 2

I use these sites for general product recalls (categorized by use), although I think they are maintained by the same group:

www.Recalls.Gov

US Consumer Product Safety Commission

For other recall resources, refer here:

Protect Yourself from Recalled Products

In addition to government-kept list of recalls, I would also keep an eye on the manufacturer and distributor of your equipment. Some manufacturers - notably foreign ones - might not keep their recalls up to date with the US government, or their recalls might not be of a safety nature.

For example: Black Diamond recalls

You didn't specify, but my links presume you are US-based, but other governments should have their own managed lists as well.

FYI, the CPSC mentioned in this article is the host of the above two links for recall lists.

Recall This: The Real Danger Behind Climbing Gear Recalls

Answer 3

I had the same question earlier this year and found similar resources as already mentioned by others.

The table on the UIAA site seems quite complete, however I personally found two issues with the table:

• It is limited to climbing only while most people who climb are interested in a broader range of safety relevant products (climbing, summer/winter mountaineering, ski touring, etc.)
• It mainly lists recalls officially announced by manufacturers and lacks safety issues/warnings detected by the community

In my research I found the safety blog site from DAV (Deutscher Alpenverein = German alpine club) which is much broader and extensive, but the site is available in German language only: https://www.alpenverein.de/Bergsport/Sicherheit/

For this reason I started my own site earlier this year on https://outdoorsafety.rocks/. I believe us of today it is the most complete source on safety warnings for climbing & alpinism in the English speaking community.

The site is quite new and I am still in the learning phase. I am also new to Stackexchange but I guess it would be against it's policy and purpose to ask for feedback in this question. Still eager to learn what you think about it, so feel free to reach out to me by any practical means (directly on my site, social media, etc.).