Making Outdoor Gear Outdoor-friendly

A lot of apparel and other gear employs a potentially harmful and environmentally damaging family of waterproofing compounds called PFCs – now the search is on for more eco-friendly alternatives.

MOST OF US TAKE PAINS TO REDUCE our environmental footprint when outdoors: stick to recognised trails, carry out all garbage, use eco-friendly water bottles. But what we often don’t realise is the damage done before we even step into the back country.

According to a recent Greenpeace campaign, 36 apparel brands use perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) to make their products durable and water repellent. They may come in forms of a membrane or a less-durable impregnation treatment. Culprits include household names like Patagonia, Columbia, Arc’teryx, The North Face, Haglöfs – the list goes on. Only Vaude, UK-exclusive Páramo and Swiss-based Rotauf have met standards that Greenpeace regards as satisfactory. Though most companies claim they’re on the road to phasing out PFCs, Greenpeace is asking consumers to get involved.

Introduced to manufacturers more than half a century ago, PFCs have been seen as the golden child because they give products a longer shelf life and abrasion-resistance as well as repelling water, oil and other stains. They are used to treat myriad materials besides fabrics, including paper, blood repelling hospital gear, automotive textiles, vehicle insulation and – the application that saw the worst PFC-related scandal to date – kitchenware.

In the 2000s, PFCs were found in the bloodstreams of more than 69,000 people who shared a neighbourhood in the mid-Ohio valley with the DuPont chemical company that makes Teflon. The dosage was shown to depend on their proximity to the manufacturer. As of 2016, the company faced 3,500 lawsuits filed in the federal court, according to the USA Today Network.