Textiles are made of a range of different materials, both synthetic and natural, and are part of a very complex value-chain system. This makes mapping or assessment of chemicals within textiles very challenging. Stefan Posner is a polymer and textile chemist with more than 30 years of experience in the field. In this seminar, he talks about chemical management in practice in real textile value chains.
He starts with the complexity of textile industry and talks about "bad" chemicals, how they should be prioritized and how the legislation on chemicals in textiles looks and should change.
How to achieve an effective chemicals management? Stefan Posner says that if you are aiming for a good management of textile chemicals, you have to know which ones to avoid. For instance, there are about 26 000 dye stuff molecules available today in the textile industry but only 10-15 of them are listed. Here lies a real challenge.