The First Standard Is Directed At Children'S Wear Safety.

Since October 1st, China's first industry standard specifically formulated for infants and young children (24 months and under age) has been formulated safely: the infant clothing standard (FZ/T81014-2008) is officially implemented.

This is the first national industrial standard formulated specifically for infants and young children's clothing safety, and all clauses concerning infant and young children's clothing safety are mandatory.

The implementation of this standard will standardize the production and sales market of infant clothing, and better protect children's health and safety.

With the focus on product quality caused by the "Sanlu milk powder" incident, the Chinese garment industry must continue to strengthen the awareness of quality and safety, and take the quality as the foundation to do well the livelihood industry.

Children's wear is another new market force emerging from the field of dress and clothing after women's wear and underwear.

In recent years, the average birth rate of Chinese newborns has been growing at around 15%, and there are 2~3 newborns per day.

The rate of increase in births is analogous to the yearly increase in the number of children in the country. China will form a huge consumer market for children.

With the growing demand for children's clothing and increasingly fierce competition in China, the formal implementation of the "infant clothing standard" will not only make infants, children and adults share a mandatory national safety standard for textiles, but will also have a huge catalytic effect on the reshuffle of children's clothing market.

Many mandatory provisions stipulate the terms and definitions, sizes, requirements, inspection methods, inspection classification rules, and technical features such as marking, packaging, pportation and storage of infant clothing products. The main assessment items are: external quality, washing size change rate, color fastness to washing, color fastness to saliva, color fastness to perspiration, color fastness to water, fastness to rubbing, sewing strength, buttons and other non removable accessories pulling force, which can extract heavy metal content, fiber content deviation, formaldehyde content, pH value, decomposable aromatic amine dye and odor.

Compared with the previous standard of children's clothing, the new standard has specified the specific standards of arsenic, copper and formaldehyde in clothing, which is a compulsory clause to protect infants' physique.

For example, the arsenic content should not exceed 0.2 mg / kg, copper content should not exceed 25 mg / kg, formaldehyde content must be less than or equal to 20 mg / kg.

In addition, considering the infant skin is more delicate than adults, the national standard limits the pH value between 4 and 7.5, and prohibits the decomposition of aromatic amine dyes, and there is no smell.

Because infants like to pull clothes and bite clothes, if the infant clothing formaldehyde content exceeds the standard, it will cause harm to infant health.

Therefore, the new standard clearly stipulates that the neckline and hat side of infant clothing should not be allowed to use rope, and the length of the rope must not exceed 14 cm. The embroidery or manual sewing decoration does not allow flashing chips and granular beads or touches of cutting-edge substances. It is particularly emphasized that dry cleaning agents may contain substances that irritates infants and young children, so infant clothing must be marked "not dry cleaned".

The market pass rate is worrying. Although the "infant clothing standard" has been formally implemented since October 1st, it is embarrassing that few people understand this new standard, and the quality and safety of children's clothing is still worrying.

Parents choose clothes for their children. They can only carry out the principle of "expensive is right" by feeling and experience.

In 2006, the incident of "carcinogenic children's clothing" in Guangdong still left people with a lingering fear.

2 years ago, the quality and safety of children's clothing market is still worrying.

In November this year, the Wuhan industrial and commercial department conducted a spot check on the infant clothing market in Hanzheng Street, the largest clothing wholesale market in Central China. A total of 46 infant clothing stores were inspected. According to the requirements of the "infant clothing standard", only 4 sold infant clothing accords with the new standard, with a pass rate of less than 10%.

The main non conformities are: decomposable aromatic amine dyes, pH value, moisture fastness to rubbing fastness, colour fastness to washing, fiber content and product identification.

This year, the children's clothing market in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Liaoning and other regions also showed a low pass rate.

Especially in the rural wholesale market, the lower pass rate is worrying.

In November 5th, due to the excessive lead content of metal necklace, a domestic children's clothing was voluntarily recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission of the United States.

In the current situation of tight export situation, the recall of products due to quality problems is undoubtedly a heavy blow to enterprises.

The standard is difficult to carry out. Why is the "infant clothing standard" implemented, and the pass rate of products is still so low?

"There are many reasons."

A staff member of the quality inspection department said.

The reasons for the poor children's clothing market are the increase in production costs, the lack of convergence between the upstream and downstream industries, the lack of temporary popularization of the new standards, and the lack of knowledge about the quality and safety of the people.

"The quality and safety of large enterprises and big brands should be better," the official said.

But small and medium-sized enterprises produce more products.

This is not a problem that can be solved by a single effort. It requires the joint efforts of the upstream and downstream manufacturers, such as fabric, printing and dyeing, accessories and so on.

At present, we have begun to strengthen the monitoring of raw and auxiliary materials, and re-examine the safety of children's clothing design.

Environmental protection green is becoming more and more popular among the people. The safety of children's clothing is a matter of concern to the whole society. The communication and coordination work with the upstream industry will also be strengthened in the future.

For example, prohibition of decomposable aromatic amine dyes requires strict requirements for dyeing plants to be carried out in dyeing process, and the accessories provided by accessories manufacturers must meet the requirements of the new standards.

Another problem is that the implementation of the new standard is short circuited.

"Textile and clothing weekly" visited a number of children's clothing sales centers in Beijing. Most of the households had only seen the introduction of the "infant clothing standard" in the media, and had not received any notice from the official or factory side.

Little is known about the specific contents of the standards.

"This new standard should be targeted at manufacturers, right?"

Many operators have such questions.

In fact, most shopping malls, business households, consumers and enterprises are not aware of the standards of infant clothing. This is also an embarrassment that is commonly faced after the introduction of industry standards.

A professional who participated in the standard setting told textile and clothing weekly reporters that the new standards often take a long time to convey to the manufacturers and retailers.

It is suggested that positive measures should be taken to talk about the difficulty of implementing the new standards. The Department in charge of routine inspection and supervision shows that enterprises actually attach importance to the health of infants and young children, but the importance of pH value is obviously not enough.

There are many reasons why the pH value of children's clothing is not up to standard. In the process of textile printing and dyeing, all kinds of agents are not fully washed, and all kinds of finishing agents added in the process of washing are not standardized. If the fabric is not fully washed after printing and dyeing, it will be dried out or not take certain measures to neutralize the fabric, which will cause the pH value of the fabric to exceed the standard.

In order to improve the pass rate of infant clothing, experts suggest that enterprises should strengthen their training work for relevant personnel, promote their correct understanding of standards and correct use of new standards, avoid human factors causing color fastness and unqualified pH value; at the same time, introduce new technologies, new processes and new methods, but also use green dye and advanced finishing technology as far as possible; also provide necessary testing instruments and equipment, and strengthen testing personnel training; suppliers should be required to produce test reports for raw and auxiliary materials, and samples of raw materials and auxiliary materials purchased at regular intervals or irregularly should be sent to authorities for testing and verification to ensure that infant clothing meets the requirements of new standards.

Experts also remind enterprises that infant clothing has always been a sensitive area in the clothing market.

Unlike other categories of clothing, infant clothing must first consider safety factors, and safety standards are the top priority of infant clothing management.

The implementation of the "infant clothing standard" will bring the children's clothing industry into a new development period.

Yang Jing: editor in charge