PFCs: Greenpeace turns its attention to air quality in outdoor stores
13/07/2016
In this instance, the four brands that receive the most negative attention from Greenpeace are Mammut, Salewa, The North Face and Norrøna, while Vaude, Rotauf and Paramo are outdoor brands that receive Greenpeace’s praise for “committing to zero chemical discharge and transparent monitoring systems”.
For this latest report, Greenpeace conducted air tests in stores in Taiwan, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. In some cases, it took samples over a period of between 20 and 30 hours; in other the tests of air quality were briefer, running for 50 minutes. For these shorter tests, Greenpeace placed the samplers inside bags with tubes extending out of the top of the bag while the tester walked around. When WSA asked Greenpeace if keeping the sampler devices inside bags indicated a lack of knowledge and consent on the part of the outdoor brands, it said: “We did the samplings without the knowledge of store owners or companies, except in Taiwan,where all samplings were conducted in agreement with store owners.”
The report itself and the accompanying press release Greenpeace issued on the opening day of Outdoor repeat the message the organisation has consistently delivered on the health concerns surrounding high concentrations of PFCs. “Studies show that exposure to volatile PFCs can be linked to increased levels of PFCs in the bloodstream,” Greenpeace said. “For example, the PFC substance known as 8:2FTOH can transform into a toxic carcinogen and remain in the body for years. Exposure to some PFCs has also been associated with adverse health effects in humans, including kidney and testicular cancers.”
Asked by WSA for an example of the studies it was referring to, Greenpeace sent a link to a 2013 study from Sweden that highlights the levels of exposure professional ski waxers can be exposed to. The Swedish study makes reference to the waxers experiencing mean levels of FTOH at 114 microgrammes per cubic-metre. The tests for ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ detected only a tiny fraction of that, levels around 40 nanogrammes of 8:2 FTOH per cubic-metre at most in Europe for the long samples. A Mammut store in Zurich had levels of 1.6 nanogrammes per cubic-metre of air.
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