Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

It might be hard to imagine that exercise could be harming your health. It turns out that even while you are doing something healthy, what you are wearing while doing it could be cause for concern. Public health advocates, including Greenpeace and European regulatory bodies that oversee chemical safety, are becoming increasingly concerned by evidence that shows a possible link between sportswear and health issues such as cancer, obesity and developmental disabilities. While toxic chemicals are a longstanding issue in various types of apparel, sportswear presents a particular problem because sweat and friction can prompt more rapid absorption of toxins into the body.

Greenpeace released a report last month cataloguing how apparel companies are failing to regulate the chemicals in the sportswear they manufacture.The Greenpeace report comes after a slew of research over the past few years highlighting the potential health risks of various chemicals used in sportswear- primarily dyes, solvents, and polyfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), which make items water, grease and stain-proof.

In Greenpeace’s report it promoted Adidas from “greenwasher” to “trendsetter” and bestowed the less complimentary “greenwasher” title on Nike. Following earlier findings by Greenpeace about Adidas’s previous poor performance, the company sat down with Greenpeace and committed to eliminating hazardous chemicals by 2020 and being 99% PFC-free by 2017. Manfred Santen, toxics campaigner for Greenpeace International in Germany, called this “a big step in the right direction”. Nike spokesperson Greg Rossiter responded to the report by saying their own greenwasher title is undeserved. He said that the company phased out long-chain PFCs at the beginning of this year, requiring that all materials meet the standards laid out in Nike’s Restricted Substances List.