Earth Protect Blog

Some of the world's most famous clothing brands, including Nike, Adidas Puma, and H&M are using suppliers that pour toxic chemicals into China's rivers, the environmental pressure group Greenpeace has claimed.

By Peter Foster, Beijing

In a year-long investigation, undercover activists collected water samples from discharge pipes at factories belonging to two of China's largest textile manufacturers which tested positive for dangerous chemicals, including hormone-disrupting alkylphenols that are banned in Europe.

The organisation named a host of international brands in a 115-page report titled "Dirty Laundry", including Abercrombie & Fitch, Converse, Lacoste, Calvin Klein and Chinese sports giant Li Ning, as having business links with the two textile processing plants.

More than 70 per cent of China's rivers and lakes are polluted as a result of China's three decades of economic boom, and Greenpeace campaigners called on major brands to use their influence to force the industry to clean up its act.

"Currently many of the highlighted brands take a 'not in my product' approach towards hazardous chemicals, only restricting them in their final products," said Li Yifang, the group's Toxics Campaigner.

"Such policies essentially give suppliers the green light to discharge hazardous waste water as long as the chemicals are not found in the products. We are asking brands to take a more comprehensive approach and eliminate all hazardous chemicals throughout their supply chains." Photographs and video showed campaigners in biohazard suits creeping in at night to take samples from the Youngor Textile Complex on a Yangtze River tributary in Ningbo, near Shanghai and the Well Dyeing Factory in the Pearl River Delta near Hong Kong.

The samples of filthy water were sent for testing in Exeter and the Netherlands which found a cocktail of chemicals, including hormone-disruptors, heavy metals and perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) that are heavily restricted in Europe.

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