As part of the international DETOX campaign, the environmental organisation Greenpeace released the new report “Chemistry For Any Weather – Part II” mid of December 2013.
For this purpose, Greenpeace commissioned two independent laboratories to measure perfluorinated and polyfluorinated chemicals (PFC) as well as other hazardous substances in 17 outdoor clothing items.
A jacket by the Sympatex partner Kaikkialla was also among the 17 tested outdoor materials. It features a laminate based on the PTFE-(polytetrafluoroethylene)-free Sympatex membrane as well as the PFC-free, water-repellent Bionic Finish Eco treatment.
Test winner Sympatex
After the analysis, the Sympatex laminate has received the best test results by far. In the product with the second-best results, 25 times the amount of PFC was measured. The jacket with the highest PFC contamination even had values that were more than 830 times higher.
Greenpeace states in the report that even in the jacket produced with Sympatex laminate, perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCA) have been found in the laboratory tests. According to Greenpeace, the PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) “values are noticeable (higher than 1 μg/m²)”. But the laboratory that was commissioned by the environmental organisation confirmed a PFOA value of 1.02 μg/m².
In addition, the Sympatex laminate is the only product without any measurable traces of FTOH and FTA (fluorotelomer alcohols and acrylates respectively).
The causes for the existing contaminations, which had already been mentioned in the first Greenpeace report “Chemistry For Any Weather”, appear all along the production chain, among them are the production of PFC-free finishing agents, lamination, application of the finishing agent on the textile, ready-made clothing, storage, transport, retail sale, sampling, research laboratory. Nevertheless, Sympatex and the industrial partners work hard to identify all contamination sources and eliminate them as much as possible.
Basically, Sympatex welcomes the efforts of Greenpeace to ban PFC as soon as possible from the products of the outdoor clothing industry. In addition to the continuous development of PFC-free products, one of the greatest challenges will be to supply products that are as uncontaminated as possible. To achieve this, all partners who are part of the textile production chain have to act.
As one of the worldwide leading producers, Sympatex Technologies has been a pioneer for high-tech functional materials in clothing, footwear, accessories and technical fields of application since 1986.
Together with selected partners, Sympatex develops, produces and distributes membranes, laminates and functional textiles as well as finished products worldwide. The Sympatex membrane is highly breathable, 100% wind- and waterproof and regulates the climate.
