Export Children'S Clothing: Quality And Safety Should Not Be Ignored

A few days ago, the Zhangjiagang inspection and Quarantine Bureau found that the batch of 6622 girls exported to Germany and 40 thousand girls' worth of clothing were tested.

The free ends of the bow in the chest exceed 7.5 centimeters, which do not conform to the relevant regulations in the EN14682-2007 standard.

Since the beginning of this year, the Bureau has found that the risk of quality and safety of children's clothing, such as rope, azo dyes and flame retardants, has been more than 30, which has effectively promoted the export of children's clothing.

In 1-7 months, the total number of children's clothing exported to Zhangjiagang was 2676 batches and the value of goods was $60 million, up 34.8% and 6%, respectively, and zero notification and zero recall were achieved.

Our country is traditional.

Exporting countries, because children do not have or are not fully equipped with self-protection ability, have always been strict in the quality and safety of children's clothing internationally, coupled with trade protection in developed countries, and market access conditions are constantly improving.

According to the European Commission's non food quick warning system (RAPEX) bulletin statistics, children's clothing is the worst hit area of recall products. In 2011, China's export of European Union children's clothing was recalled by RAPEX for 162 times, of which 156 were for mechanical safety risk notification and 6 for chemical hazards.

Therefore, based on many years of work experience, the author thinks that only by strengthening the supervision and inspection of children's clothing and eliminating the risk of quality and safety can we enhance the competitiveness of the international market.

1. Technical barriers to international trade for children's clothing export

At present,

There are four main categories of technical barriers to international trade in terms of quality and safety.

1. clothing machinery physical safety technical regulations.

For example, the 2001/95/EC universal product safety directive issued by the European Union, among them children's clothing rope and band safety technical standard EN14682-2007 has strict requirements for the rope of various parts of children's clothing under 14 years of age.

2. chemical safety regulations for clothing.

EU directive 2002/61/EC and 2003/03/EC prohibit the use of 22 dyes (banned azo dyes) and "blue dyes" which can be decomposed and decomposed into carcinogenic aromatic amines. EU directive 2004/96 /EC stipulates that the amount of nickel released from the long-term direct metal products with human skin is less than 0.5 g/cm2 per week.

3. public safety technical regulations.

In order to reduce fire accidents caused by flammable textiles, many countries stipulate that clothing must have flame-retardant function in legal form and should be marked on products, such as the burning regulations for children's pajamas issued by the United States.

4. technical regulations for clothing biosafety.

If the European Union feather and down hygiene and cleanliness requirements EN12935-2001 stipulates that the oxygen consumption index must be less than 20, Salmonella 20 g should not be detected.

Two. The main quality and safety risks of children's clothing export.

1. design has hidden dangers.

The design of children's clothing affects the use safety mainly in two aspects: first, the design of the rope is unreasonable.

The rope around the head and neck may cause strangulation and suffocation to children especially infants and young children because of unconscious winding or accidental hooking. The long rope in chest, waist and other parts may cause towage casualties during children's play.

In a circular issued by RAPEX in June 29, 2012, Hungary exported a number of Huasheng children's suits in Hungary in the name of E-374B because of the rope pulling in the hood and waist area, and the plastic rope buckles at the end of the rope. There was a risk of injury and injury, which was not met the requirements of the EN14682 standard. Two, the design of ornaments and widgets was unreasonable.

Beautiful ornaments and widgets can certainly increase the selling point of clothing, but children's curiosity can tear and gnaw, resulting in the separation and fall off of ornaments and widgets, which easily lead to swallowing and suffocating injury.

For example, a batch of children's clothing exported to the EU is due to the alkyl C10-C16 mineral oil contained in the decorative compass cover, which is likely to cause chemical pneumonia after swallowing, and is not recalled in accordance with the 2001/95/EC directive requirements.

2. the chemical safety indicators of children's clothing accessories are not qualified.

First, there are banned azo dyes in the surface excipients.

Two, the pH value does not meet the standard requirements.

Three, formaldehyde content exceeds the prescribed requirements, such as infant clothing formaldehyde content exceeds 20mg/kg.

Four, the content of heavy metal nickel, lead and cadmium exceeded the standard.

Five, the content of o-phenyl two formic acid (Plasticizer) exceeded the standard.

Six is the color fastness is not qualified.

3. manufacturing defects.

First, the sewing is not firm and the adhesion is poor.

The sewing fastness of buttons, rivets, flashing decorations and other decorative pieces did not meet the requirements of the specified tension, and the poor fastness to adhesion of local printing and hot stamping products, etc., were all likely to cause the small parts to fall off, which could be swallowed by children or other safety hazards.

In March 2011, CPSC announced that a group of 1600 Chinese girls' jeans were recalled because of the danger of asphyxia caused by artificial diamonds and small pieces of metal embedded in trousers pocket, and two of them were broken needles.

The residue of broken and residual needles in children's clothing will cause harm to children's immature skin.

The Japanese PL law requires that no clothing, no matter adults or children's clothing, be broken or damaged.

4. flame retardancy is not up to standard.

In 2011, 5 batch of children's pajamas were recalled by us CPSC because of their unqualified flame retardancy.

Too fast burning of fabric or melting after burning can cause burn, scald and even life-threatening.

Canada has developed a special dangerous product (child pajamas) Ordinance (SOR/87-443) according to different age groups.

The United States also has children's pajamas burning regulations 16CFR Part 1615,16CFR Part 1616.

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Three, the reasons for the risk of quality and safety in children's clothing export

In my work, I found that children's clothing was repeatedly notified and recalled, mainly due to the risk of product quality and safety. There are three reasons.

1. lack of risk assessment for children's clothing design.

At present, the export trade of children's clothing in China is still dominated by OEM. Children's clothing manufacturers completely produce according to the design requirements of the brand owners. Due to the lack of information communication or information synchronization, some enterprises can not understand the latest laws and regulations in foreign countries in time, and can not judge the conformity of the design. Secondly, they do not know enough about the importance of the regulations, and blindly cater to the customer requirements, which leads to the design of children's clothing and the use of small parts, which do not meet the technical requirements of the importing countries.

2., there is a lack of effective control over the safety and quality of raw and auxiliary materials.

With the disorderly competition in the industry, on the one hand, labor costs and other production costs have gone up. Some small businesses have purchased raw and auxiliary materials with low quality and low cost in order to reduce costs. On the other hand, some children's clothing enterprises provide raw materials and auxiliary materials when processing raw materials.

The toxic and harmful substances in raw materials of children's clothing mainly come from a series of processing processes such as raw material production, yarn weaving, dyeing and finishing, post-processing and clothing. If there is a slight negligence in the processing, there will be potential chemical risks including banned aromatic amines, high or low pH value, excessive formaldehyde content and so on. Excipients (such as buttons and zippers) also have the risk of excessive heavy metals.

3. lack of self-examination and control of the quality of production process.

At present, China's garment industry presents the pattern of "big industry and small enterprises". On the one hand, because of the low threshold of garment industry, especially knitted garment enterprises, most of them are weak in foundation and lack of necessary testing equipment and management means. Secondly, in order to further reduce labor costs, some enterprises act as "setters", sewing and processing outward, and only finished product inspection and packaging. As the safety and quality critical control points of garment factories are key processes such as sewing, adhesion and needle inspection, they can not effectively monitor quality and safety.

Four, eliminate the risk of children's clothing quality and safety measures

In order to ensure the quality and safety of children's clothing, the author believes that the inspection and quarantine department should move forward the regulatory port, turn the inspection of children's clothing from the conventional size and sewing appearance items to the key points of children's clothing production and the inspection and supervision of safety and hygiene quality, at the same time, help enterprises establish corresponding quality and safety guarantee system, and really escort children's clothing enterprises.

1., strengthen the supervision of children's clothing product design.

One is to do well "propagandists".

Through training, inspection and exchange platform and other forms, let enterprises understand foreign mandatory standards, regulations, directives and other policies, improve the ability to identify the design scheme of customers.

The two is to be a good instructor.

To guide the design of children's clothing, such as rope and belt design, zipper button parts, etc., whether they conform to the technical regulations and requirements of the import country related products, so as to improve the safety of children's clothing design and avoid the trade risk caused by design errors.

2., strengthen source supervision.

One is to require enterprises to set up high risk raw materials and auxiliary materials, and select safe and environment-friendly raw and auxiliary materials, including chemical safety items issued by authoritative inspection organizations, such as banned azo dyes, PH, formaldehyde content and heavy metal content in the annex coating, etc.

The two is to supervise and verify the high risk raw and subsidiary materials ledgers, and carry out spot checks and verification of the test results, and eliminate potential safety hazards from the source.

3., strengthen the safety supervision of the key process of children's clothing production.

First, enterprises are required to establish the first sample management system to ensure the correct selection of process parameters for the first sample production.

The two is to require enterprises to set up a whole process inspection system for production. For high risk safety projects, necessary testing equipment must be provided, such as button tension devices, needle checking machines, etc. the quality of safety items such as sewing fastness and adhesive fastness of children's clothing should be monitored regularly to ensure that the technical laws and regulations of importing countries are met.

Three, enterprises are required to establish a registration system for dangerous substances to prevent the residues of dangerous substances in the production process.

4., strengthen supervision and management of enterprise laboratories.

Detection is one of the effective means to improve the quality and safety of children's clothing. Conditional enterprises can set up their own testing laboratories.

Inspection and quarantine departments, through training, organizing enterprise laboratories to carry out comparative tests and other activities, help enterprises detect personnel to improve their testing level.

5., strengthen the classified management of children's clothing enterprises.

In accordance with the principles of "risk analysis, normative assessment, dynamic adjustment, good quality and wide margin", the effectiveness of inspection supervision is improved.

We should supervise and supervise the enterprises with large risks in production management and products that are at risk, so as to prevent the risk of quality and safety of children's clothing from being notified or recalled.