Remains of Toxic Substances in Textiles and Garments Highlights

At the end of August 2011, Greenpeace announced the results of the survey on the residual toxic and hazardous substances in global branded apparel. This report refers directly to Nike, Adidas, Puma, Converse, KAPPA, H&M, and many other well-known global apparel brands, claiming that its products contain nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ether (NPE) residues.

Since the report of the Greenpeace organization was aimed at famous global apparel brands, the quality of apparel once again attracted everyone's attention. In fact, as early as 2005, the European Union stipulated that chemical additives used in the production of textiles sold on its market should not contain more than 1,000 mg/kg of NPE substances. How to use NPE as soon as possible or how to reduce the time without using NPE is worth discussing.

NPE overturns the global textile and apparel industry. Greenpeace, which released this report, is one of the world's leading NGO organizations. The so-called NGO refers to non-governmental organizations that are not considered as government associations, associations, associations, charitable trusts, non-profit corporations, or other legal entities, and are not for profit. Its driving force is volunteerism, and it is not driven by economic interests. It is an important symbol of the rise of civil society.

The NPEs measured in more than two-thirds of well-known branded apparel products mentioned in their report are called nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ethers. It is understood that NPE is widely used in the textile industry for printing, dyeing and cleaning processes. Once NPE enters the environment, it quickly decomposes into a more toxic environmental hormone, NP, which is nonylphenol. NPE is recognized worldwide as an environmental hormone. Studies have shown that even if the concentration of this material is very low, it is extremely dangerous.

This time, Greenpeace purchased 78 samples of 15 clothing brands in 18 countries around the world, including sportswear, casual wear and footwear. Subsequently, the organization sent the samples to a qualified third-party laboratory for testing. The results showed that more than two-thirds of the samples were detected to contain NPE. This also involves China's famous clothing companies.

In view of the visibility and influence of Greenpeace, this news undoubtedly caused a great uproar in the global textile and apparel industry.

By consulting related materials, we learned that China's national mandatory standard "Basic Safety Technical Code for National Textile Products" (GB/T18401-2003), which was implemented in China in 2005, has already been applied to clothing pH value, formaldehyde, color fastness and Decomposition of carcinogenic aromatic amine dyes and other strict limits. In other words, if clothing companies that produce and sell in China are strictly in accordance with standards, under normal circumstances, there will be no excess of hazardous substances in the textile and apparel products entering the market terminal.

It can be said that in this incident, many well-known brands of textile and garment companies “bridled their head” on the quality of clothing. In fact, it is not difficult for us to review history. It is not uncommon for companies involved in difficult situations or even bankruptcies in these years because of the quality of textile and apparel products.

However, it is worth noting that the main reason for the unqualified detection of most textile and apparel products was unclear labeling and inaccurate fiber content. This kind of situation can only be regarded as a matter of less than the excessive residual toxic substances in the product. Imagine who can maintain “calm and calm” when facing toxic textile and apparel products. If anything, such as the confusion of the identification of fiber components, may also be caused by the negligence of workers, either intentionally or unintentionally. Its consequences are not enough to have a serious impact on consumers' health and even their lives. However, such quality problems caused by the residues of toxic substances have caused people to "fear".