|
|
 |
IFOAM and the issue of organic textile processing |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Latest update: 4th March 2011
04/03/2011: IFOAM organized a session on "Can textile processing be organic" at the Biofach Nuremberg Congress
Invited speakers were Ann Shankar from Biodye India, a company that produces natural dyes based on wild plants, and Lee Holdstock who represented the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). Lee presented the GOTS requirements for the use of dyes (synthetic dyes are allowed, provided they meet certain requirements). Following this, Ann presented the environmental damage caused by synthetic dyes, the new technical possibilities of natural dyes, and her vision for organic standards to promote those.
Download Lee Holdstock's presentation here.
Download Ann Shankar's presentation here.
28/02/2011: IFOAM invited its membership to comment on the first revision draft of GOTS 3.0, the Global Organic Textile Standard: outcome
GOTS describes itself as “the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibers, including ecological and social criteria, backed up by independent certification of the entire textile supply chain” (for more information, click here).
In June, the Global Organic Textile Standard launched an open comment period on the first revision draft of GOTS 3.0 and the corresponding Manual for the Implementation. Following this announcement, IFOAM collected comments from its members and related stakeholders in order to shape the position of the movement towards the Global Organic Textile Standard. Members were provided access to all the GOTs documents, asked to send all comments to the Head Office, then given an opportunity to discuss hot topics in a Webinar, and finally asked to respond to two general questions on issues that emerged from the discussions, namely the issue of nanotechnology use and the issue of treatment with synthetic chemicals in textiles labeled as organic.
A total of 36 persons and/or organizations sent their comments to IFOAM within the deadline. The positions towards the two issues raised in the second call for comments were as follows: 90% of the respondents were against the use of nanotechnologies in organic textiles (5% abstention, 5% in favor), and 86 % were in principles against the use of synthetic chemicals in textiles labeled as organic (3% abstention, 11% in favor). Based on the feedback provided, IFOAM submitted detailed comments to GOTS. On the issues mentioned above, IFOAM proposed:
- to further restrict the use of synthetic substances, possibly switching to a positive list of allowed substances, instead of a list of forbidden ones.
- to add requirements to ban the deliberate use of nano-technologies in the textile processing.
The full detailed comments submitted by IFOAM to GOTS can be downloaded here (part 1)and here (part 2).
Background documents from GOTS:
GOTS' official response to IFOAM's comments can be found here.
For more information, please contact ogs@ ifoam.org.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
