Feature story - January
23, 2014 - A team from Greenpeace East Asia's
Detox campaign recently discovered an unsettling
sight off the coast of South Eastern China.
Next to the city of Shishi, a centre for
children's clothing production, they discovered
a huge black plume of wastewater around
the size of 50 Olympic swimming pools on
the sea's surface; a large dark scar on
the water easily visible via satellite imagery.
Further research indicated that this plume
was coming out of a discharge pipe from
the Wubao Dyeing Industrial zone and more
specifically, the Haitian Environmental
Engineering Co. Ltd wastewater treatment
plant which serves 19 of Shishi's textile
dyeing facilities.
Following this discovery,
Greenpeace activists collected and tested
discharge water coming from two of the facilities
at the Wubao zone towards the wastewater
plant for treatment. The findings were released
in a study entitled A Little Story About
a Monstrous Mess II. The tests revealed
the presence of a range of hazardous chemicals
such as the hormone disruptor nonylphenol
(NP), chlorinated anilines and antimony
in the wastewaters. Despite our attempts
to sample the outfall into the sea, it was
not possible to access the discharge point
underwater.
The toxic water pollution
scandal uncovered at Wubao, Shishi is just
the tip of the iceberg. In China alone there
are 435 discharge points like the one serving
Wubao, spanning the coast and releasing
32.2 billion tons of wastewater into the
sea each year. In 2012, a staggering 68%
of them had records for illegal discharge
while 25% had never met national environmental
standards, according to official data from
China's state Ocean Administration.
Polluting our waterways,
contaminating our clothes
Greenpeace East Asia went on to test children's
clothing purchased and produced in Shishi
and another centre for children's textiles,
the city of Zhili in Zhejiang Province.
Together, these two cities account for 40%
of all the children’s clothes made in China.
The testing revealed that many of the very
same chemicals found in the dyeing facilities
discharge wastewater were also in the clothes
themselves. Greenpeace tested 85 clothing
items for a range of hazardous chemicals
including phthalates, antimony and nonylphenol
ethoxylates (NPEs) which break down to form
the toxic chemical nonlyphenol (NP). The
findings revealed:
26 samples tested positive
for NPEs with the highest concentration
reaching 1,800 mg/kg
Over 90% of the samples containing polyester
tested positive for antimony
Two samples were found to contain phthalates
with a concentration of above 1,000 mg/kg,
the highest being 1,7000 mg/kg. It was also
found in some other products, though at
lower concentrations
Protecting our Little Monsters
The use of hazardous chemicals during the
manufacture of children's clothing poses
a large-scale problem in China and around
the world. Not only is it leading to environmental
pollution locally, as seen from the discharges
in Wubao, residues of these substances can
also be found amongst the millions of products,
sold and exported across China and to countries
all over the planet from textile towns such
as Shishi and Zhili. For example, 70 – 80%
of products produced in Shishi are exported
to countries in the Middle East, Europe,
North America, Southeast Asia and Africa.
Child at s Clothing
Store in Beijing.12/13/2013 © Wei Gao
/ GreenpeaceThe continued use of hazardous
chemicals such as these, not just in clothes
but also in children's toys and other products,
will inevitably lead to increased levels
being released into the environment either
at the site of production or from various
other sources. This can include domestic
washing machines or even from some products
into the air. Given the scale of manufacture
in the textile industry, the use of these
chemicals, even at low levels, can lead
to considerable amounts ending up in our
environment, increasing children's exposure
to these hazardous substances and heightening
the potential health risks they pose.
Compared to adults,
children can be more sensitive to some effects
of certain hazardous chemicals. Some chemicals
have the ability to interfere with children's
normal hormone functions and affect the
development of the reproductive system,
immune system or nervous system.
The bigger picture
The findings at Zhili and Shishi are just
a snapshot of a much larger problem within
China's textile industry. In China today
there is no adequate regulation to strictly
oversee the use of hazardous substances
used at the hundreds of production sites
such as Shishi. This chemical management
regulation is critical to ensuring that
hazardous chemicals are no longer used to
manufacture clothing and other textiles
for children or adults.
Greenpeace is calling
on the Chinese government to enforce a crucial
new piece of policy that requires factories
that use and discharge hazardous chemicals
to register and disclose to the public the
release and transfer information of hazardous
chemicals. In some places like Mexico and
Taiwan crucial first steps are being taken
towards critical chemical regulation and
showing that it can and should be done.
Two Greenpeace activists
submit the findings of the Monstrous Mess
II report to China's Ministry of Environmental
Protection as an early Chinese New Year
gift. © Greenpeace / Wu Wendi
"Two Greenpeace activists submit the
findings of the Monstrous Mess II report
to China's Ministry of Environmental Protection
as an early Chinese New Year gift."
A global problem with
a global solution
Government regulation has a key role to
play but the textile industry also needs
to act with urgency. Greenpeace's global
Detox campaign is calling on major brands
to take action now towards this shared goal
of a toxic-free future. Thanks to global
people power well-known brands like Zara
and Mango are already taking landmark steps
towards supply chain transparency – ensuring
factories reveal discharge information publicly
– and towards elimination of all hazardous
chemicals.
However, there is still
more work to do. Following on from its report
on Chinese textiles, Greenpeace East Asia's
most recent study revealed a range of potentially
hazardous chemicals in children’s clothes
made by leading international clothing brands
such as Burberry, Disney and Adidas. While
their competitors take credible steps to
come clean these brands continue to lag
behind.
