Cleaner Technology Transfer to the Polish Textile ... - Miljøstyrelsen

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In 1992 the Danish Environmental Protection Agency offered to convene the
establishment of criteria for some textile products.
After consultations with industry, it was decided to work with two concrete
product groups: T-shirts and bed linen. The first part of the work considered a
very stringent definition of the product groups, also including the types of
fibres to be included. Based upon a market analysis, both product groups were
restricted to include cotton and polyester/cotton products.
The next part of the work considered a very detailed inventory regarding the
product groups, that is, a description of all the different production stages from
cotton growing and polyester production over yarn spinning to knitting or
weaving, dyeing, finishing, use (including washing/drying) and final disposal.
For the different production stages, all possible environmental impacts are
outlined, as stated in the Regulation through its Indicative Assessment Matrix.
The inventory was used to identify key features from which a set of draft criteria
were issued. These draft criteria have been intensively discussed and
altered during the last 2 years, and a final criteria document was circulated for
voting by the Member States in 1996. The criteria were formally approved at
a meeting of the Eco-label Regulatory Committee and published as a Commission
Decision on 22 April 1996, in the Official Journal No L 116/30.
Environmental management systems
In 1992 British Standards Institution (BSI) issued a specification for Environmental
Management Systems, BS 7750:1992. The standard shares common
management system principles with BS 5750 (EN 29000, ISO 9000), the
European and internationally recognized quality systems standard.
At the same time the European Commission was preparing an eco-audit
scheme, which was formally adopted in June 1993. Sometimes known as
EMAS, the voluntary scheme has been in force for more than 3 years, and a
number of companies are working towards establishing a system which can be
certified. As an example, it can be mentioned, that two Danish textile companies
already have received a certificate.
Within ISO, work has just been finallized with the aim of creating a standard
(ISO 14000) based upon BS 7750, as also was the case for ISO 9000 and BS
5750.
As BS 7750 is a very general standard, it could be recommendable to have sector
application guides. The Commission have supported such work in a number
of cases, e.g. work is, for the moment, going on regarding the carpet industry,
led by GuT. The draft guide-lines are currently being tested at selected carpet
mills. Euratex are having similar plans for other sectors of the textile and
clothing industry.
It can be foreseen, that environmental labelling and environmental management,
including published environmental audits, will become a major demand
on our industry in the years to come, both from customers and authorities.