Analysis Of The Impact Of PFOS Limited Standards On Leather Enterprises

Analysis of the impact of PFOS limited standards on leather enterprises

At present, most leather enterprises in China do not know what to do. PFOS Although not all leather products contain PFOS, enterprises should pay attention to the source of the new barriers and start from raw materials.

PFOS Chinese is known as perfluorooctane sulfonyl compound, and it is widely used in textiles and leather products. Since June 27th this year, the EU has limited the PFOS content of leather products sold in the market to become China's textiles. Leatherwear Exports of products to the European Union encountered a major technical barrier.

Some leather products, or PFOS, have been investigated from several relatively large leather production and export enterprises in China. At present, domestic enterprises do not know what PFOS is, nor do they do any relevant tests or tests.

　　 PFOS technical barriers It refers to the directive No. 2006/122/EC issued by the European Union at the end of 2006, namely, "laws, regulations and regulations governing the sale and use of certain hazardous substances and products by all Member States," which limits the content of PFOS in European Union products. The directive stipulates that the PFOS content of the finished products sold in the EU market from June 27th this year can not exceed 0.1% of the total quality, and the content of semi-finished products should not exceed 0.05%. At present, PFOS has been used in textile, carpet, leather shoes, paper making, packaging, printing and dyeing, washing, cosmetics, pesticides, fire fighting agents and hydraulic oil manufacturing, which is the most widely used in textile industry, followed by leather industry. According to statistics, last year, the export of leather bags in China amounted to 1 billion 530 million dollars, leather garments exported 34 million 180 thousand pieces, 1 billion 290 million dollars, leather shoes exported 1 billion 300 million pairs, and the amount was 9 billion 560 million dollars; the EU was the largest or main export market for all kinds of products. The implementation of the PFOS directive has become another major technical barrier to the export of textiles and leather products to the European Union.

The domestic leather industry does not attach much importance to this new directive because it is not all leather products that contain PFOS. In general, only when leather products are required to achieve certain performance, such as waterproofing, oil proofing and antifouling, will PFOS be added to the production process. From a professional technical point of view, the current domestic production enterprises are running on demand, and the product quality standards are all in accordance with the requirements of customers. Therefore, only when the specific requirements of foreign customers are followed, will a certain directive be observed, and enterprises seldom take the initiative to understand the various directives and standards abroad.

Experts should not be able to reminding the enemy. From the current test data statistics, most of the textile and leather goods exported from Tianjin can meet the requirements of the new EU directive. Some experts from the inspection and Quarantine Bureau's industrial product safety technology center said that at present, China's textile and leather products manufacturing enterprises have not noticed the use of PFOS in the production process. PFOS is a surfactant, it will be added to the finishing agent and dyestuffs of textile and leather products as additives, instead of directly used in the production of textile and leather products, and the formula of finishing agents and dyestuffs are generally confidential. The names and contents of the components will not be indicated in the instructions, so the domestic textile and leather production enterprises may be misused in the production process. "PFOS as a surfactant, mainly plays a dispersive role, mainly used in waterproof and oil resistant leather and textile materials."

After receiving the information about the 2006/122/EC directive in 2006, the industrial product safety technology center of a certain inspection and Quarantine Bureau has actively organized the backbone of science and technology to carry out research and research, and has set up a PFOS working group composed of several Ph.D. and master's degree. After more than a year's efforts, we have completed the AQSIQ's "detection technology and safety evaluation technology of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and its derivatives in packaging materials", and the research of the Tianjin Bureau's "Research on the detection and safety evaluation of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in textiles". The two conclusions reached the international leading level, and the draft two national standards of "perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) detection in textiles -- liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry / mass spectrometry" and "perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) detection in textiles" - GC / MS have been approved and implemented nationwide. At present, the Tianjin inspection and Quarantine Bureau's industrial product safety technology center has accepted 31 applications for PFOS inspection and issued a test report, which provides scientific and effective technical support for Tianjin's smooth export to the European Union.

Tianjin has not yet been exported by EU because of PFOS exceeding the standard. Because most of the textile and leather production enterprises in China do not have specialized legal advisory departments, they do not collect and understand EU directives. In addition, even though some enterprises know this directive, they have been waiting to see what specific measures the EU and our government agencies and trade associations have. "But from the existing testing data, some manufacturers' test results still exceed the EU's limited requirements."

The enterprise should be traced back to the source. "What is worth noticing now is that many enterprises do not add PFOS when making leather into finished products, but it is not known whether PFOS is contained in raw leather. Early attention, early research and early action, if enterprises are uncertain about raw material composition, raw materials suppliers should be required to do relevant work. Testing If the raw material contains PFOS, it can choose its substitutes properly. The enterprises should carry out PFOS testing in all aspects such as raw material procurement, production process control, and finished products leaving the factory. If it is necessary, it must meet the new EU directive requirements to overcome this barrier.