Sympatex reacts to Greenpeace’s new Detox report
08/01/2014
A jacket by the Sympatex partner Kaikkialla was also among the tested outdoor materials. It features a laminate based on the PTFE-(polytetrafluoroethylene)-free Sympatex membrane as well as the PFC-free, water-repellent Bionic Finish Eco treatment.
Sympatex has published the following as a reaction to the report: “After the analysis, the Sympatex laminate has received the best test results by far. In the product with the second-best results, 25 times the amount of PFC was measured. The jacket with the highest PFC contamination even had values that were more than 830 times higher.
“Greenpeace states in the report that even in the jacket produced with Sympatex laminate, perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCA) have been found in the laboratory tests. According to Greenpeace, the PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) ‘values are noticable (higher than 1 µg/m²)’. But the laboratory that was commissioned by the environmental organization confirmed a PFOA value of 1.02 µg/m². In addition, the Sympatex laminate is the only product without any measurable traces of FTOH and FTA (fluorotelomer alcohols and acrylates respectively).
“The causes for the existing contaminations, which had already been mentioned in the first Greenpeace report ‘Chemistry For Any Weather’, appear all along the production chain, among them are the production of PFC-free finishing agents, lamination, application of the finishing agent on the textile, ready-made clothing, storage, transport, retail sale, sampling, research laboratory.
“Nevertheless, Sympatex and the industrial partners work hard to identify all contamination sources and eliminate them as much as possible.
“Basically, Sympatex welcomes the efforts of Greenpeace to ban PFC as soon as possible from the products of the outdoor clothing industry. In addition to the continuous development of PFC-free products, one of the greatest challenges will be to supply products that are as uncontaminated as possible. To achieve this, all partners who are part of the textile production chain have to act.”
Based in Germany, Sympatex develops, produces and distributes membranes, laminates and functional textiles as well as finished products worldwide.
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