OEKO-TEX will be 25 years old in 2017 and it
has reviewed the requirements of its products and has published the new
regulations at the beginning of the year. An overview of some of the changes:
MADE
IN GREEN and MySTeP
The OEKO-TEX Association has established a
new price strategy for the MADE IN GREEN by OEKO-TEX product label to fully
satisfy market requirements. The new pricing offers label issuers the option to
use smaller packets of labels, or even a single label for their product to be
labelled with MADE IN GREEN by OEKO-TEX.
STeP
After three years on the market, OEKO-TEX
has revised the STeP by OEKO-TEX limit value tables in Annex G1 and G2 of the
standard document. These revisions have been influenced by ongoing changes in
the global environment, input from customers and current regulatory
developments.
A new chapter has been added in Annex D:
“Hazardous Processes That Should Be Avoided”. These processes to be avoided
include the use of potentially hazardous surfactants, sodium hypochlorite (as a
bleaching agent) and defoamers that are potentially damaging to the
environment.
STANDARD
100
The new regulations for STANDARD 100 by
OEKO-TEX will come definitely into force on 1 April 2017 following a
three-month transition period. At the parameter “per- and polyfluorinated
compounds”, a large number of substances have been added or listed explicitly
by name in product class I (items for babies and small children) and provided with
limit values.
As a result, in product class I, the use of
per- and polyfluorinated compounds is severely restricted and nearly
eliminated. A large number of substances are also included in the list of
regulated softeners (phthalates) in all of the product classes. The three
organic tin compounds dipropyltin (DPT), monophenyltin (MPhT) and tetraethyltin
(TeET), are now regulated with limit values in all product classes.
In addition, the use of the blue colourant
“Navy Blue” is also now explicitly prohibited for product certification
according to STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX.
These new requirements allow the OEKO-TEX
Association to provide significant support for both the Zero Discharge of
Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) initiative and the Detox campaign. These new changes
will help OEKO-TEX further increase awareness in the textile manufacturing
chain regarding the responsible handling of potentially hazardous substances in
textile products and sustainable production in 2017.