Textile industry: the pursuit of green is not the best only better (on)

Recently, Greenpeace, an international environmental organization, released a report entitled "Fashion of Fashion - A Survey of China's Water Pollution by Global Apparel Brands", which put 14 clothing companies including Li Ning, Nike, and H&M to the forefront. According to the survey, 14 global apparel brands such as Nike, Adidas, and Li Ning are currently unable to effectively solve the problem of water pollution in China caused by toxic and hazardous substances emitted by suppliers. The two Chinese apparel material suppliers involved in the report were Younger Group, a listed company in Ningbo, Zhejiang, and Zhongshan Guotai Dyeing and Finishing Co., Ltd., located in Zhongshan, Guangdong.

In response to the investigation report, Youngor Textile City promptly issued an announcement that the contents of the report were inconsistent with the fact that Youngor's sewage discharge complied with national standards. The announcement showed that the automatic monitoring device set up by the local EPB in the drain outlet of the Youngor Sewage Treatment Plant was used for real-time monitoring to ensure that the discharged sewage had no impact on the biological environment. As a key indicator of emissions testing, Youngor Industrial City's average COD (chemical oxygen demand) emission value is 60 mg/L, while the national standard is 100 mg/L; the BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) is 3 mg. /L, the current national standard is 25mg/L.

Does the company have any illegal discharge of wastewater? The relevant person in charge of the Ningbo Environmental Monitoring Detachment said in an interview with the media that the three kinds of chemical substances such as nonylphenol (NP), PFOS, and PFOA were reported in the Greenpeace report. There is no relevant testing requirement and no emission standards have been established. Judging from domestic standards, Youngor's emission targets are in line with standards, and key indicators such as COD and BOD are within the limits. For another company polluted by water, Zhongshan Guotai Dyeing and Finishing Co., Ltd., the Guangdong environmental protection department stated that they did not find the company's sewage discharge abnormal.

Responsibility to end

Greenpeace expressed publicly that although Chinese laws have not specified specific requirements for the use and release of toxic and hazardous substances mentioned in the report, nonylphenol has been included in the latest edition of “China’s Strict Restrictions on the Import and Export of Toxic Chemical Substances List”. PFOS is restricted in the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, and China is also one of the signatories to this Convention.

In response, Chen Zhihua, secretary-general of the China Printing and Dyeing Industry Association, said that although China had signed the "Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants" in 2009, it was formally implemented in 2014 and a buffer period of five years is still needed. Therefore, there is no violation of the Convention in China. In recent years, China's textile and garment companies have made tangible improvements in sewage treatment, energy conservation and emission reduction, and various emission targets have reached or even surpassed international standards.

According to Greenpeace’s report, “The three toxic substances of nonylphenol, PFOS, and PFO were detected in the wastewater discharge of Youngor Textile City”, and Youngor Textile City provided third-party testing to the author of this report. Institutions and international authoritative environmental monitoring agencies - "Study of water quality test results analysis" by SGS, Switzerland, as evidence of rebuttal. SGS's analysis report shows that nonylphenol and PFOS have not been detected in the discharge of Younger Textile City. The Greenpeace report pointed out that the detection value of PFO was 0.13 to 0.14 μg/L, while that in the SGS report was 0.36 μg/L. In fact, the European environmental certification requirement for the Oeko-tex Standard100 standard for infant products is 100 μg/kg.