Finally, the transitional period of forbidding PFOAs was over on last Saturday, July 4th 2020, now it is effective for both European level and Germany national law! I can imagine it, you might be busy for the next few months to discuss with the labs about the definition of "homogeneous material", to ensure that your rain jacket in the coming season does not get on the "RAPEX" list. Many from German fashion brands would ask me, why do we still have problems with this? We have achieved well in DETOX since so many years, didn´t we? Well...that´s just what DETOX Reports and the sustainability reports of different brands here in Europe are saying.
A small test before we get into the real status about DETOX or Chemical Compliance. Who of you knows that chemical producer giants like Huntsman produces more non-compliant chemicals like Teflon than compliant ones for the textile industry every year. And the ratio of the low-quality products are even rising. On the other side, they are very active in green washing themselves, publishing "positive lists" and cooperating with ZDHC, etc... what a successful marketing!
Here is the thing matters to you and your products, if you know your factory good enough, then you will find out that dyeing master for coating your rain jacket has got at least 3 types of water repellenting preparations from Huntsman and some more from other brands. And he claims that he will use the compliant one for your products, but in fact, always a little bit from those others, because he knows, otherwise, the fabric won´t pass the water repellency test, which will cost him trouble later. And these coating factories are not just "some" factories, but very nameable one, coating for half of famous international brands, sitting in Zhejiang Province in China. But this is just small peak of an iceberg. Let´s switch to Bangladesh. Does anyone of you believe that the ETPs there work normally? Dr. H.Schönberger of University Stuttgart shared the same opinion of me. He said in a conference that he had never seen so many "shows" of ETP in his life together compared to those within one trip in Bangladesh. Believe it or not, the DETOX reports of 100+ wet-processing factories from Bangladesh on my table resulted all far better than those from Turkey, Italy or China in the last few years.
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To conclude the status quo, we unfortunately haven´t come so far as it is reported. What we need here, seriously, is to review our tools, the partner institutes and the test methods/procedures, etc.
The very positive things are, many useful new standards and programs for textile industry are/were being developed in some Asian countries like Japan, Korea and most important, China. One of most active institutes is CNTAC and I am very proud to be a part of these programs, as program leader, to develop "Chemical Management Education" online course, covering all relevant chemical compliance issues. Beside this, CNTAC also takes very active steps in cooperation in circular economy, micro plastics, climate change, where some famous European sustainability drivers also take part in, such as Lenzing and Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
The next fast-growing countries for fashion products in the coming decade, like Myanmar, Pakistan and Ethiopia have one thing in common obviously...enormously high influence by Chinese investors. And they will definitely adapt Chinese standards in many ways.
If you would like to know more about my expertise, my projects or textile standard development in China, just speak out in your inquiry. See you around!