Golf Refugees have started a petition for "Nike, Adidas and Puma to provide customers with a list of the chemical ingredients used to make their sports apparel, and we need your help to get it off the ground. Will you take 30 seconds to sign it right now? Here's the link: http://www.change.org/petitions/nike-adidas-and-puma-provide-customers-with-a-list-of-the-chemical-ingredients-you-use-to-make-your-sports-apparel
Here's why it's important: Polyester based sports apparel is specifically designed to interact with your sweating skin; the largest organ in your body. Polyester is a non-biodegradable plastic derived from petroleum. To make it more suitable for sportswear the chemical industry developed moisture-wicking and anti-bacterial textile finishes, adding many more chemicals. The European Consumer Organisation recently tested polyester football shirts from major brands and extracted toxic substances including lead via simulated sweat solutions in laboratories across Europe. They recommended consumers wear a natural fiber t-shirt underneath sports shirts to act as a barrier and limit your skins exposure. Some of the chemicals used are listed as skin irritants, hormone disruptors and even carcinogenic. Lead is a very good example. Why is it still being used in sports apparel? Do you want your children to run about in sport shirts containing hazardous lead, without your knowledge? You can therefore understand why these sports brands are so reluctant to inform you about the chemicals they use to make brightly coloured polyester sportswear. There is currently no obligation for sport brands to test their apparel and current European REACH regulations do not require any evaluation of the potential toxicity of using combinations of substances of very high concern.
We therefore feel it is essential that Nike, Adidas and Puma come clean and inform their customers. Transparency will create increased consumer awareness and build pressure to find safer alternatives. It will also provide a choice for consumers to purchase sports apparel for their children which avoid using harmful substances such as highly toxic lead. I would personally purchase a lead free sports shirt for myself, given the choice. Sport should be a healthy activity without our sweating skin interacting with untested combinations of toxic chemicals hidden from us. Please support our campaign for 'Sportswear Polyester Ingredients Transparency' (SPIT).
You can sign my petitionby clicking here. Thanks!
Golf Refugees
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