Sports brands implicated in new Greenpeace water - sportstextiles: Lea SportsTextiles

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Sports brands implicated in new Greenpeace water report

20/03/2012
Campaign group Greenpeace has published details of new research showing, it claims, that residues of hazardous chemicals, specifically nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), remain in many clothing items sold by major international sports brands and can contaminate water supplies following washing by consumers.

It says “a significant percentage” of chemicals used in the textile manufacturing process can be released when consumers wash their clothes and can be discharged into rivers, lakes and seas.

“This can happen wherever in the world clothing items are sold and washed, and means that brands are making their consumers unwitting accomplices in the release of these hazardous substances into public water supplies,” Greenpeace claimed.

In a table, the organisation listed the brands whose clothing it had put to a wash-test. In some cases, it had taken the textile components of athletic shoes and washed those.

This table suggests that after one wash, 9% of the NPE in a Kappa product manufactured in Thailand had washed out. This was a comparatively low score. More of the chemicals, 56%, had washed out of a Converse product from the Philippines, 88% from a Nike product from China, 44% from a Li Ning product from China, 45% from a Puma product from Turkey and 90% from an adidas product manufactured in Thailand.

Greenpeace concluded that all residues of NPEs within textile products will be washed out over their lifetime and that in many cases this will occur after only a few washes.

In 2011 Greenpeace published two reports: one investigating the discharge of hazardous substances from textiles manufacturing in China and another detailing the presence of NPEs in clothing and footwear of 15 leading brands. Sportswear companies were far from the only clothing brands involved, but they bore the brunt of criticism and campaigners from Greenpeace conducted public protests at a number of sports shops in Europe last summer.

At the time of the release of this latest reoprt, a spokesperson for the organisation, Marietta Harjono, said: “World Water Day is approaching (22 March) and while international organisations and research groups show their concerns over the future of water quality and water access, the textile industry is still polluting. It’s time the sector moved to safe alternatives to these chemicals.”



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