New Regulations On Eco Friendly Textiles And Clothing Certification

In order to further enhance the safety of Oeko-TexStandard100 (ECO textile certification standard) marking textiles, and to promote a more coordinated and better combination of Oeko-Tex100 certification and Oeko-Tex1000 certification in the Oeko-Tex system, the international environmental textile association has said that from January 2012, NPEO, OPEO, NP and OP in APEO will be included in the testing area.

It is known that alkylphenol polyoxyethylene ether (APEO) mainly includes nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ether (NPEO) and nonylphenol (NP).

These substances are often used as surfactants for textile production and processing, such as detergents, industrial detergents, dispersants, wetting agents and other industrial chemicals.

Although there are no commonly accepted findings, it is clear that wearing clothing containing NPEO chemicals is harmful to human health. However, such chemicals pose a great threat to the environment.

NPEO and NP are all non degradable substances. Once released into the environment, they will accumulate and invade NP's daily food chain, contaminating the food in the food chain, thus causing harm to human health.

In the environmentally friendly factory accreditation Oeko-TexStandard1000, the International Environmental Protection Textile Association (Oeko-Tex) has restricted the use of such environmentally harmful surfactants (including OP octyl phenol and OPEO octyl phenol polyoxyethylene ether) and has become an important inspection project for Oeko-TexStandard1000 certification.

Based on the fact that there is no recognized data, the above surfactants are directly harmful to human health. Therefore, in the Oeko-TexStandard100 eco textile certification of the association, although the harmful substances and chemicals were inspecting up to more than 300 kinds, the surfactants were not included in the inspection area.

In order to enhance the safety of Oeko-TexStandard100 certified textiles, the international environmental protection textile association will start adding the new assessment substances and their limited values into the Oeko-Tex assessment catalogue from January 2012. The enterprises will be able to comply with the above material requirements from April 1, 2013.

The specific restrictions are as follows: NP:100ppm, OP:100ppm, NP (1-9) EO total: 1000ppm, NP (1-9) EO total: 1000ppm.

The relevant person in charge of the agency said that the expansion of Oeko-Tex100 standards on substances such as NPEO and NP will promote the textile industry to reduce the use of such surfactants, thus promoting the green and healthy development of the global textile industry chain.

The environmental protection textile association will immediately inspect the above surface active substances in the purchased products, in order to remind the certificated enterprises to pay attention to such substances and help enterprises identify and avoid such substances in the production and supply chain.

In addition, the 15 member organizations of the association will also share information on the elimination of APEO substances in time with the enterprises at regular on-site audits (1 times every 3 years).