Home breadcru News breadcru Chemicals/Dyes breadcru Swiss bluesign revamps safety guidelines for chemical use in textiles

Swiss bluesign revamps safety guidelines for chemical use in textiles

17 Jul '23
2 min read
Pic: Shutterstock/New Africa
Pic: Shutterstock/New Africa

Insights

  • bluesign's annual revision of chemical substance restrictions has incorporated new scientific knowledge, legal classifications, and consumer safety limits.
  • The PFAS containing chemicals for DWR finishing have been phased out, with defined limits for bisphenols now in place.
  • The revised BSSL and BSBL documents align with ZDHC MRSL 3.1 and AFIRM RSL 2023.
Swiss organisation bluesign, has annually revised restrictions for chemical substances that are published in the bluesign system substances list (BSSL), bluesign system black limits (BSBL), and bluesign restricted substances list (bluesign RSL).

The 2023 revision considers new scientific knowledge on the toxicological and ecological profile of substances, new legal classification of chemical substances, new legal consumer safety limits, revised risk assessments following the bluesign Critera for chemical assessment, feedback from experts of its Chemical Expert Group (CEG) as well as new analytical standards, bluesign said.

On July 1, 2023, all PFAS containing chemicals used for DWR finishing were removed from the bluesign Finder according to the company’s PFAS phase-out concept. After two years of monitoring chemical products, bisphenol S, bisphenol F, and bisphenol AF limits are now defined. Alignment with ZDHC MRSL 3.1 and AFIRM RSL 2023 has been implemented.

The revised documents of BSSL and BSBL came into effect and are applied in the bluesign Tool from July 1, 2023. They replace the BSBL, version 4.0 from July 1, 2022, and BSSL, version 13.0 from July 1, 2022.

The bluesign RSL, version 14.0 is still under preparation and will be published by end of July 2023.

The 2023 revision of BSBL and BSSL, as well as the documents regarding the relevant changes to substances and limits can be found on the bluesign website under the following headings—BSBL v5.0, BSSL v14.0, bluesign RSL v14.0, BSBL v5.0 – Changes 2023, BSSL v14.0 – Changes 2023, and bluesign RSL v14.0 – Changes 2023.

ALCHEMPro News Desk (NB)

Get Free Weekly Market Insights Newsletter

Receive daily prices and market insights straight to your inbox. Subscribe to AlchemPro Weekly!