Páramo is the first outdoor company to have signed up to the Greenpeace Detox commitment, to exclude hazardous and persistent pollutants from the production of textiles.
At the ISPO trade show in January, Gareth Mottram (CEO of Páramo Directional Clothing) publicly announced this commitment which lays out the basis for excluding hazardous chemicals from the production of all Páramo Outdoor products.
PFC-based water repellents are either directly released or they break down to form extremely toxic and persistent PFC chemicals which have migrated to the furthest reaches of the world. Recent research by Greenpeace showed that you can find PFCs in the most pristine environments, in the Arctic and high up in the remotest mountain ranges. It is not possible to remain a PFC user and sign up to the Greenpeace Detox commitment.
Páramo asserts that high waterproof performance does not require PFC pollution. Páramo uses water repellency provided by Nikwax, who have a 15+ year commitment to the elimination of PFC chemistry. Páramo’s clothing has been used by many expeditions, including Greenpeace’s own expeditions to obtain samples of snow and water for PFC analysis and the British Antarctic Survey team (BAS) who work for long periods in one of the most challenging places on Earth.
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www.paramo.co.uk