China's Footwear Export Meets Germany's New Policy

Chen Zhanguang told reporters that the German Federal Ministry of food, agriculture and consumer protection recently issued the No. eleventh TBT bulletin, the eighteenth revision of the statute of the commodity act of the country, limiting the production of leather by tanning processing by chrome tanning, and stipulate that leather products that are in contact with human body, including leather bags, knapsacks, textiles, watchbands, shoes and toys, shall not detect six valent chromium in their final products.

The notification is to be approved and entered into force this year.

According to the provisions of WTO, if a member state is prepared to pass mandatory standards or regulations and may affect or harm other Member States' trade, it must inform the other Member States and have the obligation to solicit opinions from other member states.

Chen Zhanguang disclosed that Germany had to make such a law, mainly because Germany had no leather industry, and Germany's chemical technology often took the lead in the world.

Most leather enterprises will use chrome tanning to make leather products with good strength and feel.

Zhang Chunchu, a product inspector of Wenzhou gigantic footwear industry, told reporters that the EU's customers have strict requirements on the content of six valent chromium in their products, and their value must be less than 3ppm (mg/kg).

If it does not contain six valent chromium at all, it will be very difficult to achieve real leather products. Only non leather products can be without six valent chromium.

Chen Zhanguang said that for leather manufacturing enterprises, 85% of tanning enterprises are trivalent chromium, and its harm is inferior to six valent chromium. In the current use of products, it belongs to the environmental protection series. "But what we need to pay attention to is to prevent trivalent chromium from oxidizing into six valent chromium."

This requires adjustment of tanning technology, including the use of vegetable tanning agents for retanning, adding antioxidants in the Fatliquoring Process, and avoiding drying under direct sunlight.

In addition, the chromium powder used in leather tanning is also tested to test whether the content of six valence chromium and six valent chromium is over standard.

When the final product is out of factory, the inspectors also need to check strictly and minimize the losses caused by environmental barrier and other technical barriers.