What Governments Are Actually Doing About Toxic Fashion
Are we any safer from hazardous chemicals than we were two years ago?
When I published my book in mid-2023, I included in the final chapter a wish list of things I would like governments to do to protect us from toxic fashion.
It’s been 20 months since then. And in the U.S., as you might have noticed, a lot has happened. (In Europe, there have been some proposals, but not much has gone through. So I’m focusing on the good ol’ U.S.A.)
I think now is a good time to go through my wish list and see if we’ve made progress or backtracked on some of these things. I want to know: are carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, allergens, and sensitizers more or less likely to be in our clothing today than in 2023?
Is this about to get political? Well, yes and no. I promised my readers in November that I wouldn’t criticize people based on how they voted. Belittling people doesn’t work, and will also eat your soul. Everyone has a right to respectful discourse, as well as good information they can use to live better lives, regardless of their political beliefs. I believe in critiquing the people in power and the decisions they’ve made, rather than regular folks who are just trying to get on with their lives with imperfect information.
So today, I’m going to share factual information about legislation that has passed and government moves that have been made, and the most likely outcome of those moves. If you’re firmly on one side of the political spectrum or the other, you might disagree with my interpretations. But I ask that you keep an open mind and know that I’m not trying to score points with a certain tribe here. (If I were, I probably would be doing this on Instagram, not on Substack.)
Where America Was on Toxic Fashion in 2023
When my book was published, I placed America behind Europe in terms of regulating toxic chemicals in fashion, but ahead of most of the rest of the world. Here’s why:
The federal government only regulated three chemicals—lead, cadmium, and some phthalates—for use in fashion, but only for children’s products. Meanwhile, researchers were testing children’s products and finding them full of lead and phthalates anyway.
In the United States, outside of California, there were no legally enforceable standards that limited what kind of chemicals could be put on fabrics and then sold to adult consumers. A factory could use a chemical in a garment that is banned for sale and use in the United States (say, the pesticide chlordane) and ship that garment to the U.S., where a retailer could sell that contaminated garment to you and me. And there is nothing illegal about that. Meanwhile, Europe had banned over 30 chemicals specifically for use in fashion products. It was also pulling shipments for testing, and blocking toxic products from entry.
The U.S. did not require fashion labels to include all the substances contained in a fashion piece, even if it was underwear, maternity wear, or for children. A label only had to list a material that is over 5% of the weight of the product (unless it’s wool). That left the door open for a “100% cotton t-shirt” to be soaked in toxic and allergenic dyes, finishes, and contaminants such as pesticides and fungicides. And you would have no idea.
In fact, most fashion brands had no idea what chemicals were used in their own products. They long ago offshored the production of their fashion to countries with loose or nonexistent regulations. Most fashion brands couldn’t even tell you the name of the dye house where their t-shirt fabric was processed, dyed, and finished—and that is on purpose. If they don’t know, when something goes wrong, they can avoid liability and just fire the factory and move on to the next cheap one.
There are somewhere between 40,000 and 350,000 chemical substances and polymers registered for use today. And the large majority of them have not been tested for safety. In the U.S., in 2023, chemicals were assumed safe until proven otherwise, and that could take more than a decade of expensive research to prove.
In fact, the EPA hadn’t fully banned a chemical since the 1980s. Chronically underfunded and disempowered, it was often accused of being too lenient and letting new chemical applications from chemical companies sail through without proper testing. Chemical companies were allowed by the EPA to keep the substances they produce and sell a secret, not sharing their identity or any toxicology information. Meanwhile, in Europe, REACH legislation requires much more registration, testing, and transparency around chemicals.
Also chronically underfunded was the Consumer Product Safety Commission. While it did publicly post consumer complaints about clothing that causes chemical burns and other reactions, those reports never led to tests to determine what was causing these reactions, and recalls were extremely rare. The situation was so bad that a letter signed in 2021 by the American Chemistry Council, Earthjustice, and NRDC asked Congress to give the CPSC more funding.
The exception to this lack of legislation was in California and its Prop 65 regulation, which requires retailers and brands to put warning labels on consumer products that contain carcinogenic or reproductive toxic chemicals. Read more about that in last week’s article.
Our clothing was full of endocrine disruptors: phthalates, bisphenol A (BPA) and its cousins BPS and BPF, APEOs, and above all, PFAS. Scientists agree that there is no “safe” dose of endocrine disruptors, yet voluntary limits adopted by some brands pretended that there is a safe amount.
Even though we had known for more than two decades that PFAS is extremely toxic—carcinogenic and reproductive toxic—and that it never breaks down or goes away, accumulating in our blood and tissue, it was still completely legal to use PFAS-based finishes on fashion. It was even allowed by the gold-standard non-toxic clothing certification, Oeko-Tex, and was found on children’s school uniforms.
We actually didn’t have good data on how widespread toxic fashion is, because any testing done by brands was voluntary and secretive, and failures were kept secret too. All the scary news on toxic fashion? Done by university researchers and public interest law firms. Some large fashion retailers had adopted voluntary limits on the amount of any one chemical allowed in a fashion piece. Those limits were based on best guesses and tradition, rather than robust toxicology research.
The de minimus loophole was allowing millions of individual packages into the country straight from sketchy factories in Asia, without being checked for safety or subjected to tarriffs. Customs and Border Protection would only rarely pull large shipments for testing, and only when they suspected counterfeits. All other packages from Amazon brands, Shein, and Temu sailed right through, duty-free.
How Could We Fix This?
There are some common-sense moves the U.S. government could make to protect us from toxic fashion. So, have we made any progress in the past two years? Let’s take a look and see.
1. Close the de minimus loophole: Unclear
The Biden administration proposed new rules to tamp down on small packages from China, like excluding textiles from the de minimis exception. The administration wanted the Consumer Product Safety Commission to require more detailed documentation as well. It was seen as a step toward dealing with this issue, but it wasn’t an executive order, just a memo.
In early February, Trump closed the de minimis loophole on packages from China, but then unclosed it again a few days later. Apparently, the sheer volume of packages now coming in—443 million packages by mid-February of this year—would have made checking and levying a $30 fee on every single package an impossible task for Customs and Border Protection. It’s unclear if the administration will revisit this issue.
2. Fund and empower the EPA to ban the worst chemicals for use in consumer products: Headed backwards
The EPA had slowly started grinding into action. It started a risk assessment of vinyl chloride, the VC in PVC, a highly toxic material used to make cheap vegan leather and clear plastic accessories like jelly shoes. At the beginning of this year, during the last days of the Biden administration, the EPA determined that formaldehyde (used to make clothing wrinkle-free, among other things) posed an “unreasonable risk” to public health because it’s carcinogenic.
Unfortunately, it looks like even that little bit of work will be undone. The Trump administration signed an executive order withdrawing from any of the environmental regulations that were still pending White House review, including the EPA plan to limit PFAS in effluent. The chemical industry lobbyist who fought the EPA’s formaldehyde assessment has been appointed by the Trump administration to oversee chemical approvals. A high level prosecutor resigned after being asked to freeze funds to the EPA, hundreds of EPA employees were fired, and hundreds more employees working on cleaning up the most toxic sites in the U.S. (several of which are near to chemical and material manufacturers that supply the fashion industry) left the EPA. The administration is also looking to loosen rules meant to stave off disasters at chemical plants.
It is not looking good for future chemical bans.
3. Expand the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s ability to test and recall toxic fashion: No movement
In October 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case that would overrule a 90-year old landmark decision that declared that presidents cannot fire members of a multi-member independent agency, except in cases of bad behavior. There has been no further news about the CPSC.
4. Ban the presence of endocrine disruptors in consumer products, especially PFAS: Big win!
California, New York State, Minnesota, and Vermont have all banned PFAS in apparel and cosmetics, and most of these bans went into effect in January. Because California and New York State are two of the biggest consumer markets in the United States, that means that brands will have to get PFAS out of all everyday apparel sold anywhere in the U.S.
Meanwhile, France has moved to ban PFAS in apparel and other consumer products. (Though there has been some critiques of it as not so effective.) And the private certification organizations ZDHC, Oeko-Tex, and bluesign all moved to disallow any type of PFAS in certified safe products. So, we should see a lot less PFAS in our stuff in the next few years.
5. Pass due diligence laws that hold fashion companies liable for toxic chemicals in their supply chain: Some movement
The Fashion Act has been proposed in New York State and as of this year, California. It would mandate that companies know and disclose their supply chains, and require companies be responsible for their impact in those supply chains. As part of that, brands would have to to know and work with their textile suppliers to effectively manage their chemical use. If you live in one of these states, you can call your representative to show your support for this legislation.
6. Require ingredient lists on fashion products: Some ideas but nothing concrete
Imagine scanning the code inside a garment in a secondhand store and seeing the complete list of dyes and materials that are in it. That is totally possible with current technology.
At the end of February the American Apparel and Footwear Association petitioned the FTC (again) to allow apparel brands to share required information via QR codes or URLs stamped directly on the fabric instead of those booklet-sized physical labels. This is something I would support, because brands could easily share more information in a way that woudn’t immediately get cut off and thrown away.
As for what information would be shared, I have spoken with a couple of advocacy organizations about the issue of hidden chemicals in clothing, and advocated for state legislation that would require brands to at least list known allergens in their products, such as formaldehyde, nickel, and disperse dyes. But I haven’t seen any concrete action taken on this, yet.
7. Fund more research on hazardous chemicals used in fashion and what they are doing to our health: going backwards
Research to suss out the effects of chemicals is necessary for regulation. And it is expensive and takes many years. Unfortunately, the current administration has slashed National Institute of Health funding to universities. A judge blocked the budget cuts, for now, but the chaos has still harmed the institutions doing this vital work.
That includes Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment, which brought us crucial research on how the dyes used in synthetic fabrics are skin and immunosensitizers. All of that research was funded at least partially by grants from NIH.
Overall: It’s the States Making Us Safer
The Biden Administration was veeeeery slowly and carefully making moves that might have made us safer, but we didn’t see any practical effects of those moves. Not yet, anyway.
The Trump administration has installed people who are hostile to chemical regulation at the EPA, reduced the staff working to keep Americans safe from hazardous chemicals, and cut funding for research. He may still close the de minimis loophole, but for it to work, it needs to be done with more thought and care.
While I know many had their hopes pinned on RFK, he has never mentioned chemicals in apparel, and has not made any moves that would tamp down on chemicals in fashion.
The best and most impactful legislation seems to be coming from New York and California, and other states. Oh, and France, too!
So if you’re concerned about toxic chemicals in apparel and other consumer products, your best bet might be to work on this issue in your own state. A good organization to support in that is Safer States, which works state-by-state to keep Americans safe from toxic chemicals.
Share your thoughts: What would you like to see your government do to get toxic chemicals out of clothing? (Be nice to other commenters! Thank you!)
Good Listens
For some reason, all at once, my whole podcast Next Up list has been people talking about how to reconnect with nature and our purpose, and move away from division.