The European Commission Will Ban The Use Of Npes In Textile Products In 2021.

The European Commission (EC) issued a regulation prohibiting all EU Member States from selling.

Nonylphenol polyoxyethylene ether (NPEs) is used in the products.

According to the EU official communique, the revised (REACH) regulation will take effect from February 2nd (2016), and the enterprise will have five years to remove chemicals from their products and supply chain.

This means that starting from February 3, 2021, the textile products on the European market should no longer contain NPEs.

It is reasonable to expect that 0.01% of the textile products or parts of the product whose concentration is equal to or greater than the weight can be cleaned in water in their normal life cycle.

The term "textile article" in its terminology refers to "any unfinished, semi-finished or finished product, at its weight, contains at least 80% of the textile fibers, or any part of the weight of any product, which contains at least 80% of the textile."

Such as clothing, accessories, indoor textiles, fibers, yarns, fabrics and

Cloth.

However, this restriction will not apply to second-hand textile products or textile products that are not made use of NPE, entirely recovered from textiles.

The move began when EU Member States agreed to ban chemicals after going to (2015).

The widespread use of NPE in the textile industry is disclosed by the international Greenpeace report - Dirty Laundry 2: Hung Out to Dry in 2011-. They point out that two textile factories that supply global garment brands in mainland China have found toxic chemicals discharged from their wastewater.

Greenpeace also points out loopholes in the EU's REACH chemicals.

Although NPE is prohibited from using textile products in the EU, the EU does not prohibit it.

Textile products containing NPE.

NPE is often used as a surfactant in textiles and decomposes into toxic nonylphenol (NP).

Greenpeace pointed out that nonylphenol is a persistent chemical interfering hormone that is easy to accumulate in the food chain and has a dangerous toxicity even if it is very low.