Toxic Chemicals Exposed in High Street Fashion…and Greenpeace Textile Products

Image source: Ecouterre

Last month Greenpeace released a report entitled Toxic Threads: The Big Fashion Stitch Up which exposed numerous global fashion brands for using toxic chemicals during clothing production.

A selection of brands were chosen, clothing items brought and sent to labs for testing to identify any restricted substances. Brands highlighted to be selling clothing with high concentrations of NPEs (hormone distruptive), and/or with the presence of phthalates (hormone disruptive/carcinogenic), amines or azo dyes (can be carcinogenic) included Mango, C&A, M&S and Zara.

I do not agree with such chemicals being used during fibre/fabric/garment production, however I came across a rather interesting article in Ecotextile this afternoon: Toxic Chemicals Found in Greenpeace T-Shirts. Unfortunately a registration is required to read the Ecotextile article, but to sum up it appears that Greenpeace cannot practice what they preach.

Phthalates have been discovered in Greenpeace t-shirts and APE’s in Greenpeace headgear. The article states that Greenpeace has removed the textile products from sale along with suspending other textile merchandise sales. It appears that Greenpeace are none the wiser about what is within their textile products, much like the rest of the industry. The organisation has committed to ‘only be able to sell textiles again when the industry can produce toxic-free fashion.’

Greenpeace are encouraging customers to keep their wears as garment durability is as much a part of their strategy: 

The wearing of our textile products do not pose a health risk. The best way to be environmentally friendly is to make it last as long as possible, so that it stays in your wardrobe and not end up in landfill.

I have tried searching the Greenpeace website for such words, but I cannot find this.

It is interesting how Greenpeace are willing to condemn fashion brands for slip-ups in the incredibly complex global textile supply chain. Will the report be re-issued with their own textile products highlighted within?

Also what will become of the rejected stock they no longer plan to sell. Within the Greenpeace statement they make it clear they do not believe in land filling textile products that have not fulfilled their life. I will be very interested to find out what their solution is with this stock.

In light of the report, Zara has committed to go 'Toxic-Free' and M&S are currently working with Greenpeace to develop new chemical commitments.

SHWOPPING!

Love this. M&S, with the help of Joanna Lumley, have introduced 'Shwopping' to the UK, wanting to 'recycle as many clothes as they sell':

They have also filled the Truman Brewery in London's East End with nearly 10,000 garments, to signify the amount of clothing that winds up in the landfill every five minutes.

Image source: Ecouterre

After last weekend's weather those clothes must be pretty damp. I wonder what they are going to do with them after; that's a mighty amount of washing (energy, energy, energy!).

Anyone Fancy a Vintage Shopping Challenge?

The Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) have partnered with both M&S and Oxfam to launch London’s first Sustainable Fashion Lab. Set in the backdrop of the ultra cool and creative Truman Brewery in London’s East End (just off Brick Lane) the Lab will launch tomorrow and run for 2 weeks:

26 April – 9 May 2012

10am-5pm every day (except Mondays)

Open to the public, for entry bring along one item of unwanted clothing.

Image source: CSF, Michelle Lowe-Holder and Noel Stewart

Today CSF have set their first challenge: M&S Heirloom Challenge this Friday at Dray Walk 3pm. The challenge is simple, you get given £25 to hunt out a beautiful, vintage M&S garment over the weekend. Less of a challenge, more of a treat in my eyes (I’ve managed to collect quite a few St. Michael garments through scouring the charity shop rails).  You will, of course, be expected to hand over your find to the Lab to be placed into an exhibition (along with your name). Your chosen garment may also be selected for inclusion in the M&S archive.

Image source: Mike McSharry

I wonder what the purpose in creating the M&S archive is: potential design inspiration? Quality and performance research? Consumer care habits?

Sound like the perfect challenge for you? Well, the only hitch is that you need to be available on Friday 26^th and Monday 29^th (unfortunate if you are full-timers, like myself). If you’ve the time to spare, be quick there are limited spaces: click the above M&S Heirloom Challenge link to find out how to enter.

Happy shopping (never thought I would ever say that!)

Lets Clean Up Fashion 2011

Labour Behind the Label has released its 5th edition of The Let's Clean up Fashion 2011: The state of pay behind the UK high street. I remember reading the 1st edition (some years ago now) when I was studying for my BA Fashion degee. The report opened my eyes to the workings of the fashion industry and triggered something in me to research more.




The report focuses on the living wage and grades many UK fashion retailers from 0-5m for example 0=does not accept the principle of living wage and 5=sustained implementation of an effective living wage policy across entire supply base.

It's safe to say that no retailers researched for this study achieved a grade 5. M&S, Monsoon Accessorize and Next lead with a grade of 3.5, while reatailers such as French Connection, Gap, H&M and Levis Straus staddle behind with a grade 1. The most shocking results of the study are the reatilers graded 0: Hobbs, Paul Smith, Reiss and White Stuff all of which cover a higher price point within the market. However the flaw within this grading is obvious when looking at the Data collected for these retailers; all except one (I will let you read to discover who) states that the retailer 'did not respond to our request for information and makes no information available on their website'. I do not think this is sufficient evidence to tar these companies with a grade 0, but the argument for this could be they must be hiding something. However, hiding something does not mean they have to be hiding something bad. What do you think?