 "It's hard to make blue jeans without nasty chemicals")
What’s in your jeans? A rogue’s gallery of unpronounceable chemicals whose effects on humans are suspect.
Perfluorochemicals, phthalates and azo dyes are among the substances that are widespread in making clothes. Under pressure from consumers demanding safer alternatives to harmful chemicals, American companies including Levi Strauss & Co are taking a more European approach. The European Union has banned or restricted more than 1,000 chemicals; in the US, fewer than 50.
Consumer demand for safe products has global companies scrambling for greener ingredients, but obstacles are daunting. Suppliers are often reluctant to share their formulations, buyers balk at higher costs, and in some cases cost-effective safer substitutes simply aren’t available.
Levi’s has prohibited certain chemicals since 2000, but this is different. The jeans maker and other companies are asking suppliers to use materials generated from bacteria, fungus, yeast and methane gas to replace the petroleum-based substances that make up more than 95 per cent of US products’ inventory of chemicals.
There are plenty of incentives to change. A Pike Research report estimates that the global market for green chemistry will increase to almost $100 billion by 2020, from $11 billion last year. Millennials are overwhelmingly interested in sustainable investing, according to Morgan Stanley. And innovating can give companies a competitive advantage, said Monica Becker, co-director of the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council, which works with companies including Walmart Stores Inc.
Companies can make false promises that a product is consistent with green-chemistry practices, Becker said, but guarding against that are assessment methods used by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Safer Choice programme.
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Rules can also confound the efforts of US companies. To approve chemicals and processes, the European Union uses a so-called hazard-based approach that the Chinese government is also considering. Manufacturers need to prove their products meet safety standards before they bring them to market. The US method is risk-based. It involves weighing metrics, such as quantity and duration of exposure, to assess the danger in an existing product — if data exist.
Proponents of a hazard-based approach argue that exposure to even tiny amounts of some chemicals correlate with learning disabilities, asthma, allergies and cancer.
“Shouldn’t it be that chemicals are guilty until research proves them innocent,” said Amy Ziff, founder and executive director of Made Safe, a new hazard-based certification programme. Levi’s said its goal is to use only chemicals that pass hazard-based screens by 2020.
Even as some suppliers push back, “we wouldn’t give up on hazard-based,” said Bart Sights, Levi’s vice president of global development.
Levi’s already uses some green methods to make its signature blue jeans. To give them a worn look, Levi’s uses an enzyme derived from fungus and tumbles the jeans in ozone gas instead of bleach — a process Sights estimated has had saved the company a billion gallons of water in the past three years.