Hazardous chemicals have gradually become a new focus on the quality and safety of exported light textile products

The Ningbo Inspection and Quarantine Bureau reported today that recently, the European and American markets have successively issued unqualified notifications for textile and leather light textile products exported from my country. Since the fourth quarter of this year, my country’s light textile products have been notified as unqualified by the European Union and North American markets. The number of cases has reached 136. Children’s clothing and artificial leather have been intensively recalled due to chemical hazards such as plasticizers and short-chain chlorinated paraffins. The number of cases has reached 40. It has become a major issue in my country’s export of light textile products after the problems with ropes and small parts. Quality and safety hazards have become a new focus, and foreign markets are increasingly paying attention to this issue, which continues to attract the attention of enterprises.
​Expanding categories and tightening limits have become new trends in European and American textile regulations
With the increasing awareness of consumer safety in the market, EU member states represented by Germany are increasingly paying attention to harmful chemical ingredients in toys, clothing, shoes and other consumer goods, especially plasticizers and heavy metals in children’s products and textiles. Banned azo dyes and DMF (dimethyl fumarate), SCCP (short chain chlorinated paraffin) and hexavalent chromium in leather products have become the focus of notifications of unqualified consumer products, and spot checks on such substances have also Keep getting tougher. Banned harmful chemicals such as AZO, DMF and SCCP have also been included in the restricted list of the EU REACH regulations, and the limits are becoming increasingly strict. Take “hexavalent chromium” as an example. Due to the harm to the environment and consumers, the EU 2002/231/ECC has long established a limit of 10 mg/kg of hexavalent chromium for consumer products authorized to use eco-labels. The subsequent revised version in 2009 /563/EC further requires the limit to be less than 3 mg/kg. Driven by Denmark, Germany and other countries, in March 2014, the European Union officially issued new regulations (EU) No301/2014, requiring that the content of hexavalent chromium in leather products that come into contact with the skin should not exceed 3mg/kg. The new regulations will come into force in May 2015, and the control will be the most stringent. As the supervision of consumer product safety and environmental protection continues to strengthen, such notifications and spot checks are becoming increasingly strict, and companies need to pay attention to them.
Chemicals that repeatedly exceed standards have become the culprits of my country’s textile notification
In recent years, my country’s light textile products exported to the EU have been subject to a high number of unqualified cases by foreign officials. The product categories involved include not only sensitive children’s products and toys, but notifications for conventional textiles and leather products are also on the rise. , incidents that have been hyped up by foreign media due to quality problems have occurred frequently, which have had an adverse impact on the international reputation of my country’s consumer products, and the response is under tremendous pressure. Judging from the specific information of notified recalls, from January to November 2014, there were 857 non-conformity notifications issued by Europe and the United States for China’s exported light textile products, of which 314 were notifications involving chemical hazards, accounting for 36.6% of the total. (The number of notifications increased by 19.8% year-on-year, and the proportion increased by 32.8% year-on-year), involving more than ten types of hazardous substances such as plasticizers, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and pentachlorophenol, including phthalate plasticizers in toys and children’s products, shoes and boots Hexavalent chromium in products and short-chain chlorinated paraffins in artificial leather products have become the three most reported hazardous chemical ingredients, accounting for 88.5% of the total chemical hazard notifications. On the one hand, the high frequency of notifications shows that many export companies in my country still lack the necessary risk prevention awareness. For example, phthalate plasticizers have long been strictly restricted by laws and regulations of various countries, including my country, but exports of sensitive goods such as toys are still frequently detected with high levels of On the other hand, the high content of DEHP and other substances also shows that there are large safety loopholes in the production and processing links of the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises. For example, the high incidence of hexavalent chromium in exported footwear products is closely related to the backward tanning process, and the transformation and upgrading of enterprises has a long way to go.
​Strictly control the management chain to eliminate harmful chemical risks
Toys, clothing, shoes and other daily consumer goods have a large export volume and are closely related to consumer health. Green and environmental protection have become the fundamental guarantee for consumer goods to stand firm in the markets of developed countries. Enterprises should attach great importance to the increasingly stringent green requirements. Response to barriers.
The inspection and quarantine department recommends that export enterprises: First, strengthen the collection and management of technical trade measures in the target market. Since EU member states have certain differences in their requirements for hazardous chemicals in consumer goods, companies must clarify market and quality requirements with customers when signing contracts. In the case of reported cases of similar products, companies should strengthen communication with customers and take precautions in advance to avoid risks. Economic disputes arise if the product is notified of recall after export. The second is to improve the management of raw materials and auxiliary materials. The first is to strictly control environmental protection in the procurement process and prevent hazardous chemicals with higher risks from entering the production chain. The second is to improve the production process and eliminate the use of prohibited harmful chemical additives in the production process to reduce the risk of non-conformity from the source; The third is to strictly implement product factory inspection management. Export enterprises should strengthen the training of internal personnel. For exported consumer goods involving new processes and new raw materials, necessary third-party testing of products must be carried out according to the requirements of market countries. In particular, for consumer goods exported to sensitive countries such as Germany, relevant measures should be appropriately added. Individual testing of high-risk chemical ingredients to ensure product quality and safety.