Milestone for Polartec as it eliminates PFAS water repellents
It will also extend to fleece and insulation treatments for greater moisture management on products like Thermal Pro and Alpha.
Mike Rose, vice-president of product development, said: “Trial results have exceeded even our expectations. There is no loss of performance from a water repellency or durability standpoint.”
The outdoor industry has been making fabrics water repellent with treatments made with perfluorinated chemicals (or PFCs, as they were previously known) for many years, but their potentially harmful effect has been flagged up, famously by Greenpeace in its Chemistry for Any Weather report in 2012. Many companies have worked towards finding a way of achieving the same performance attributes in other ways.
Polartec president Steve Layton added: “Achieving non-PFAS treatments within our product line is an important milestone in our commitment to sustainably made performance fabrics.”
