It’s been circulating on social media and online in recent years that there’s a hazard with metal bristled grill brushes. It’s possible for the bristles to fall off the brush, end up in food, and be accidentally eaten.

That has resulted in some large recalls this year with Weber voluntarily recalling over 3.2 million metal grill brushes and Nexgrill following with a voluntary recall of 10.2 million grill brushes. Both recalls were prompted by unfortunate trips to the hospital due to eaten metal bristles.

Those recalls may not be the last that we see as this issue has led to an increasing number of lawsuits. On March 9th, two plaintiffs filed a class action complaint against Weber in an Illinois federal court (Malmstein, et al. v. Weber-Stephen Products LLC, Case No. 1:26-cv-01401).

They allege that Weber failed to disclose potential safety hazards from using metal grill brushes. They continue that Weber was aware of the issue and continued to sell they brushes.

The filing also says that the remedy in the recall is inadequate to remedy consumers. The lawsuit is seeking damages, restitution and injunctive relief.

Outside of the class action lawsuit, there’s a separate filing on March 30th in New Jersey from a man that ingested a metal grill brush bristle. It pierced his pancreas and the surgeons advised that it was too dangerous to remove it. That has led to continuing pain and lifestyle modifications to deal with injury.

There were other lawsuits across the country since the recall with similar fact patterns. A consumer accidentally ingesting a bristle from metal grill brush and requiring medical attention.

With the growing number of recalls and lawsuits, I think we’ll see two things. There will be significantly fewer metal grill brushes sold due to the liability, and a rise in natural bristle and cold cleaning brushes.