"Poison Clothing Door" Incident &Nbsp; Dyeing Auxiliaries Are The Culprit.

According to the organization, the Chinese name of NPE is nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ether.

NPE itself has low toxicity, and its greatest harm is that it will quickly decompose into toxic NP - nonylphenol.

Nonylphenol is recognized as an environmental hormone in the world. It can mimic estrogen, affect the sexual development of organisms, interfere with the endocrine of organisms, and cause dysfunctions such as reproduction.

What is the NPE that caused the uproar?

How does it flow into the production chains of famous brands?

The reporter conducted an investigation in the industry.

Famous brand products involve "poison"

In 782, Greenpeace has released two reports on China's water pollution survey of the global clothing brand and the survey of toxic and harmful substances in global brand clothing.

The two report's most interesting content is the investigation of two Chinese domestic processing plants, such as Adidas, Nike, Lining and other famous brands: the YOUNGOR textile industrial city located in the Yangtze River Delta and the Zhongshan Guotai dyeing and finishing Co., Ltd. in Pearl River Delta, and found that all the wastewater discharged from the two enterprises contains environmental hormone NP.

The report also surveyed 78 samples of 15 well-known clothing brands, including sportswear, casual wear and footwear, which were purchased in 18 countries such as China, the United Kingdom and Argentina. The origin of these products is about developing countries such as China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

It was found that there were 14 problems in the 15 garment brands, and 52 of the 78 samples were NPE.

Zhang Kai, director of the Greenpeace pollution and control project, points out that the environmental hormone NP is very harmful even if its concentration is low.

Because of its durability and bioaccumulation.

That is to say, once it is discharged into the environment, it will last for a long time, and it can enter the food chain and enlarge it step by step through the food chain.

Once it enters the organism, it will affect the normal reproduction and development of the organism. Through the pmission of food chain, it will eventually lead to the reduction of the number of male sperm and the abnormal reproductive organs.

Professor Chen Rongqi, a member of the expert advisory group of China Dyestuff Industry Association, confirmed this statement to reporters.

He said that the toxicity of NP to human body is pmitted through the food chain, that is, the textile and garment enterprises use NPE in the production process, and then enter the environment with the discharged wastewater. At the same time, consumers may also discharge the remaining NPE from the clothing into the water during the laundry process, and eventually enter the river to decompose into the environmental hormone NP.

NP can continue to accumulate in tissues of fish and other organisms and enter the body through the food chain.

In recent years, studies have shown that NP is found in the human body.

Dyeing auxiliaries are the culprit.

Which part of NPE comes from the textile and garment industry?

Wang Xiaoning, a teacher in the school of materials science and engineering at Beijing Institute Of Fashion Technology, said that clothing involves "poison", mainly due to the large amount of chemicals used in textile production and processing.

Dyeing auxiliaries and dyes are the most widely used chemicals in textile manufacturing. NPE is one of the main raw materials used by dyeing auxiliaries.

Chen Rongqi told reporters that NPE is a surfactant, and its main purpose is to wash products and textile auxiliaries.

NPE is almost everywhere in the process of textile processing. The scouring agent, wetting agent, penetrating agent, enzyme preparation, printing paste, adhesive, coating agent, levelling agent, waterproofing agent, repairing agent, various emulsion, dispersant and other dyeing auxiliaries are likely to be found in NPE.

Moreover, NPE is applied to textile and dyeing auxiliaries to achieve predetermined functions through physical processes, and the chemical structure has not been affected.

So after the function is completed, it will also be "original" to the water.

Liu Jinhua, senior manager of Guangdong de Mei fine chemicals Limited by Share Ltd, said there are many kinds of dyeing auxiliaries, and twenty or thirty kinds of auxiliaries are commonly used in one garment.

Some of these auxiliaries are used in textile finishing processes, such as dyeing with dyes, so as to dye them more firmly, evenly and brightly.

The printing and dyeing auxiliaries of these processes will be washed out in the process of textile processing. If washing is not clean, there will be residues on the textile and garment products.

There are also some dyeing auxiliaries for the finishing process, that is, after adding some functional functions after dyeing, such as soft function, firm function, fuzzing function and smooth function, these functional dyeing auxiliaries will be attached to the finished products of textile and clothing, and will be sold in factories.

"NPE is used as the most important part of textile auxiliaries. It is the pretreatment process of textiles. These processes are carried out in water, and NPE will be discharged with waste water in the printing and dyeing process.

But there are also applications in the finishing process, such as soft finishing of textiles.

The emulsion used for softening finishing may contain NPE, and soft finishing is the last step. Drying will become a finished textile product, so that NPE will be attached to the garment, but it is not strong enough. It will dissolve in the water during the consumer washing process and eventually be discharged into the environment.

Chen Rongqi explained.

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The origin of double standards

According to Chen Zhihua, Secretary General of the China printing and dyeing industry association, the EU has banned these two substances in view of the dangers of NPE and NP to the human body and the environment.

The United States also provides for the full ban of NPE and NP by 2014.

In January 2011, the Chinese government also included NPE and NP for the first time in China's catalogue of toxic chemicals strictly restricting import and export.

But China has no clear rules on whether the domestic printing and dyeing enterprises can use NPE and NP.

Luo Jutao, deputy general manager of Zhejiang's Limited by Share Ltd, said that at present, many mature products in China can replace NPE, and there are no problems in technology and products, such as fatty alcohol polyoxyethylene ether, alkyl polyglucoside, and dehydrated three pear alcohol series of surfactants.

But the price of these alternatives is much higher than that of NPE.

And the performance of NPE is also good.

Because of the price and the performance of the reasons, NPE has a large market in China.

Foreign banned and domestic can not help, coupled with the use of NPE can also reduce costs, so the domestic apparel industry chain has double standards.

"Textile enterprises that export products to the European Union are very strict in the control of additives, because once the products fail to be recalled, they lose a lot.

I have been to many textile enterprises. There are two kinds of products in the warehouse. One is not NPE, it is exported to Europe and the United States. One is NPE, mainly domestic.

Chen Rongqi said.

According to Liu Jinhua, it is now required that the downstream manufacturers of the third party inspection prove that the downstream manufacturers without NPE are exported to Europe and the United States.

Tu Sheng Hong, deputy general manager of Suzhou Liansheng Chemical Co., Ltd. also said that many domestic auxiliaries manufacturing enterprises have two production lines, one is the production of auxiliaries containing NPE, the other is the production of NPE free auxiliaries.

If downstream printing and dyeing enterprises clearly point out that the additives can not contain NPE, then the auxiliaries will produce auxiliaries without NPE, but if the printing and dyeing enterprises do not make clear requirements, then the additives provided by the auxiliaries will have the possibility of containing NPE.

Reporters also learned that the use of NPE is decreasing worldwide, but its consumption is still increasing in China.

Chen Rongqi told reporters that NPE is still producing a lot in the country, and its output ranks first in the world.

In 2005, the output of China's NPE was 400 thousand to 500 thousand tons. Now, because of the EU's ban, the output is no longer open, but it is estimated that the output will not be lower than that in 2005.

Experts pointed out that the implementation of double standards in the textile industry chain, the harm to the domestic is very obvious.

But we can not blame enterprises, because the key is that the country really does not have the corresponding standards.

Chen Rongqi said that as a big producer of textile and garment industry, China is much more threatened by NPE than the European and American countries. However, there is no explicit provision for the use and control of NPE in the textile industry.

"In 2009, China promulgated laws and regulations prohibiting the use of NPE in detergents, but there was no restriction on the use of textiles.

China's mandatory requirements for textiles GB18401-2003 "national textile product basic safety technical specification" has not provided for NPE, and the revised standard GB18401-2010, which is coming into operation next year, has no relevant provisions.

Huang Xianhai, Professor of economics at Zhejiang University, pointed out that since the state has not issued standards, it is difficult for enterprises to make immediate improvements.

Although there are differences in the level of economic development both at home and abroad, in the long run, it is still the general trend to integrate international standards.

Especially in areas such as food safety and ecological health, which directly involve personal safety, we should speed up the pace of regulation standards in a timely manner.

In addition, reporters also learned that the domestic textile and dyeing auxiliaries standards are seriously lagging behind.

At present, most of the quality indicators of domestic textile dyeing auxiliaries are only conventional and general indicators, lack of characteristic indicators, and no testing techniques and methods for physical properties.

Chemicals Banned and restricted in the international market, such as Eco-Tex Standard 100 in Germany, Eco-label in the European Union, RSL in the United States and other chemical and technical standards, are not only incomplete in the standards of domestic additives, but also have no roots.

Zhang Jie, consultant of China Dyestuff Industry Association, pointed out that the lag of domestic standards for dyeing auxiliaries is closely related to the technical level of China's auxiliaries.

For a long time, most of the auxiliaries in our country are imitation. The ultimate performance of the auxiliaries is similar to that of the foreign counterparts. The toxicity of the additives is neither clear nor clear.

As a matter of fact, because of the different raw materials and additives, the route of selection, and the technical conditions of control, the ingredients in the final additives will be very different, which is the key factor to determine its toxicological indicators and ecotoxicological indexes.

Unfortunately, so far, many manufacturers of auxiliaries in China simply do not know what substances they produce in their auxiliaries.