Q: What substances may be harmful to health and the environment in a piece of clothing? turn

(Transferred from Fang Zizhou's blog) A: There are many opportunities for clothing to be polluted by harmful substances in the production process, which will cause harm to health and the environment. When growing cotton, a lot of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and defoliants are used, so the air, water and soil are polluted, and pesticides will remain in cotton fibers and clothes made of cotton fibers. In order to make rayon, it is necessary to treat wood pulp with toxic substances such as caustic soda and sulfuric acid. When producing nylon and polyester, nitrogen oxides are released, which is a greenhouse gas more than 300 times stronger than carbon dioxide. Preservatives, mildewproof agents and moth-proofing agents should be used in the storage of textile raw materials, and oxidants, catalysts, detergents, bleaches and whitening fluorescent agents should be used in the weaving process, which may remain on clothes. Azo dyes used in printing and dyeing can cause cancer, and dyes often contain heavy metals, benzene, organochlorine and other substances harmful to health and the environment. In order to make clothes colorful, colorfast, wrinkle-free and shrink-free, a large number of dyeing auxiliaries and resin finishing agents containing formaldehyde should be added to the fabric. If it is not handled properly, a lot of formaldehyde will remain on the clothes. Fireproof nylon fabrics also contain formaldehyde. Easy-to-wear casual clothes and brightly colored, dyed and printed children's clothes are most prone to formaldehyde exceeding the standard, and will gradually release free formaldehyde during wearing, causing allergic symptoms. In order to keep clothes from wrinkling, perfluorinated chemicals are added to the fabric, which is a carcinogen. When buying clothes, especially children's clothes, it is best to choose clothes that are white, light-colored, unprinted, small in pattern and not hard in pattern printing. Avoid anti-wrinkle, non-ironing, waterproof, anti-fouling and other additional functions. If the clothes have irritating taste, peculiar smell and fragrance, it means that the formaldehyde content is high or there are chemical residues. Because formaldehyde is easily soluble in water, it is best to wash new clothes with water after buying them home to reduce the formaldehyde content.