Oeko-Tex Changes Standard 100 Requirements

After market monitoring and taking into account legal standard changes, the Switzerland-based
Oeko-Tex Association has updated the requirements for Oeko-Tex® Standard 100 certification.

Going forward, milligrams per kilogram rather than parts per million will be used as the unit
of measure for limit values and test criteria. The association said this will make the units easier
to compare with other standards used to measure harmful substances.

Oeko-Tex has added decabromodiphenyl ether and hexabromocyclododecane — whose use already is
prohibited by regulations in product classes I, II and III — to its list of banned flame retardant
substances. These substances are rated by the European Union’s Registration, Evaluation,
Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances (REACH) as substances of very high concern
(SVHC).

Mass content limits less than or equal to 0.1 percent of di-(2-ethylhexyl)-phthalate), butyl
benzyl phthalate and dibutyl phthalate — also on REACH’s list of SVHCs and previously existing for
Oeko-Tex’s product classes I and II — have been extended to product class III and IV.

In response to large recalls and claims processed in 2008 especially related to textiles and
toys in the United States, the total breakdown of both lead and cadmium have been added to the
existing heavy metals test based on eluate with a solution of synthetic perspiration. If these
heavy metals are bound into a massive matrix in textile items and cannot easily be detected in the
presence of a perspiration solution, the new criteria make testing for these metals possible.

The Oeko-Tex Association also has added tests for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and
perfluorooctanic acid to the catalogue of criteria for Oeko-Tex Standard 100. Because a standard
test method for detecting PFOS has yet to be determined by the European authorities, authorized
Oeko-Tex testing institutes will continue for now to use their own testing methods. 

January 21, 2009

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