EU Banned Imports Of Textile Products Containing Environmental Hormones, Textile Enterprises In China Ushering In New Challenges

According to the reporter, the EU has tighten supervision over the environmental hormones of textiles, and has completely banned the import of environmental hormones. textile 。

　　 Textile and clothing The environmental hormone problem has always been the concern of the world.

The EU explicitly prohibits the use of nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ether (NPE) and nonylphenol (NP) in textile production. The Swedish chemicals authority plans to submit the document "ban EU imports of NPE textiles" to the European Chemicals authority before August this year, which eventually led to the EU's total ban on the sale of textiles containing NPE on the market.

According to the reporter, NPE belongs to endocrine disruptors and carcinogens. As a surfactant, it is widely used in the textile industry. In addition, NPE can also be used as a cleaner. Once NPE enters the environment, it will quickly decompose into stronger toxic environmental hormones.

The relevant departments suggested that the relevant enterprises should pay attention to the new changes and implementation time of the new requirements of the EU, prepare ahead of schedule, strengthen the control of the source of raw materials, adopt clean production technology, replace NPE with eco-friendly surfactants, and abandon the way of washing textiles by water.

The industry said that this will bring new challenges to our textile enterprises with low technological capability.

NPE in textile industry They are widely used in printing and dyeing and cleaning processes. In addition to the textile industry, NPE can also be used as surfactants and detergents. Once NPE enters the environment, it will quickly break down into a stronger environmental hormone, NP, which is nonylphenol. NPE is the world's recognized environmental hormone. Research shows that even if the concentration of this substance is low, it is also very dangerous.

Between April 2011 and May, Greenpeace purchased 78 samples of 15 clothing brands in 18 countries, including China, the United Kingdom and Argentina, including sportswear, casual wear and footwear. The origin of these samples relates to 13 textile producing countries such as China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Greenpeace sent these samples to a qualified third party Laboratory for testing. The results showed that samples of 2/3, including Adidas and Lining, were detected to contain NPE[1].

NP has persistence and bioaccumulation [2]. That is to say, once it is discharged into the environment, it will exist in the environment for a long time, and it can enter the food chain and gradually enlarge through the food chain. At the same time, it also has the function of mimicking estrogen, so once it enters the organism, it will affect the normal reproduction and development of the organism, and can lead to the reduction of the sperm count of human beings.