Toxic chemicals news and archive

High levels of lead found in accessories sold at off-price retailers

A new report has found high levels of lead in leather and faux leather fashion accessories, including handbags, wallets, shoes, and belts sold at off-price retailers Ross and Burlington. The report, published by nonprofit watchdog the Center for Environmental Health (CEH), traces 13 years of systemic toxic levels found in products sold at Ross...

Fashion

How your workout clothes might be undermining your health

Working out and moving your body to feel good is an essential part of physical wellness - but what if the clothing you wear to the gym is actually making you sick? While reports concerning the use of PFAS (per and polyfluoroalkyl substances) and PFCs, better known as ‘forever chemicals’ used to coat textiles that are hazardous to both humans and...

BusinessFeatured

Should the fashion industry ban PFAS?

Is your favourite raincoat, hiking boots or period underwear causing you more harm than good? When we get dressed in the morning, we usually don’t think about what chemicals are lurking in our clothing. But there’s a potentially harmful group of chemicals present in everything we use daily - from our waterproof jackets to our food wrappers and...

Business

More than 30 textile chemicals to be restricted in the EU

The European textile industry has until December 2020 to comply to a new EU regulation restricting the use of 33 chemicals which are classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic for reproduction, including benzene, formaldehyde and heavy metals. These substances are either used to confer certain properties to textiles or remain in fabrics as a...

Fashion Featured

Textile Toxicity: What lurks in your clothes

Around 2.5 percent of the world's arable land is planted with cotton, which, in turn, consumes approximately 25 percent of all the pesticides used worldwide. This is a fact which does not leave us indifferent, but rather reveals the large amount of toxic chemicals which are used day after day to manufacture our cotton textiles and garments. The...

Fashion Featured

Toxic chemicals found in outdoor gear from The North Face, Patagonia and Jack Wolfskin

Greenpeace said Monday that hazardous chemicals were "widely present" in a range of outdoor gear it tested, from clothing and footwear to backpacks, tents and sleeping bags. The environmental activist group said out of 40 products tested, only four were free of per- and polyfluorinated chemicals (PFCs). The study showed that toxic chemicals are...