Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

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Cheesewheel
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Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby Cheesewheel » Wed Jun 03, 2015 9:24 pm

It might be hard to imagine that exercise could be harming your health. It turns out that even while you’re doing something healthy, what you’re 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.

....

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.



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gabrielle260
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby gabrielle260 » Wed Jun 03, 2015 9:41 pm

You want toxic, you should smell my 14 yr old's lacrosse gloves!!

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HappyHumber
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby HappyHumber » Thu Jun 04, 2015 10:34 am

psstt... I'll let you in on a secret.
It's actually life that ultimately kills you in the end.
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rapunzel
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby rapunzel » Thu Jun 04, 2015 11:29 am

HappyHumber wrote:psstt... I'll let you in on a secret.
It's actually life that ultimately kills you in the end.
For most of us, living is the longest, slowest way to die.

That said - re: the OP - every time I hear some news story about the latest poisons humans have created, I think about my Toxicology lecturer in uni, detailing endocrine disruptors for us. His favourite joke was: "You're half the man your father was...."

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HappyHumber
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby HappyHumber » Thu Jun 04, 2015 12:41 pm

As much as I do read the Guardian more than I do more local Fairfax & Murdoch Press, you still have to laugh at the milder forms of FUD they peddle. You click through the link provided by the OP above and scroll downto the related articles content. More doubt & concern mongering. It's obviously what catches peoples eyes and their consequent clickthroughs. Us more smug, middle class, edumacated sorts who look down at the trashier press still aren't immune to basic human nature.

Don't get me started on how much the ads on SBS bug me....
Last edited by HappyHumber on Thu Jun 04, 2015 12:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby RonK » Thu Jun 04, 2015 12:42 pm

Oh err, the sky is falling down too.
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rapunzel
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby rapunzel » Thu Jun 04, 2015 4:57 pm

I should have also added: if you're concerned about toxicity in your sportswear - maybe think of it from the point of view of production of most/any products you consume. Are the workers making it protected and safe during the process? What happens with the industrial waste associated with making the item? Nasty by-products are not always at the user-end of the cycle.

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singlespeedscott
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Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby singlespeedscott » Thu Jun 04, 2015 6:58 pm

Time to bring back good old wool :? -
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yugyug
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby yugyug » Thu Jun 04, 2015 11:40 pm

rapunzel wrote:I should have also added: if you're concerned about toxicity in your sportswear - maybe think of it from the point of view of production of most/any products you consume. Are the workers making it protected and safe during the process? What happens with the industrial waste associated with making the item? Nasty by-products are not always at the user-end of the cycle.
Good point.

I think the short answer is no, the workers and environment are getting the short end of the deal, and that's even before you start think about all the many other issues of using petrochemicals to make sportswear...

moosterbounce
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby moosterbounce » Fri Jun 05, 2015 2:06 am

HappyHumber wrote:psstt... I'll let you in on a secret.
It's actually life that ultimately kills you in the end.
Saw Billy Connolly when he was touring a few months ago and he was talking about healthy eating and death. He asked what the point was of eating cardboard tasting brown bread...sure, you might live 2 weeks longer than the white bread eating bloke in the bed next to you in the home, but it's not like you get those extra 2 weeks in your twenties or thirties. No...you get them at the end when you are stuck in a home, incontinent and where every meal is a tasteless grey milkshake. If you are just going to prolong the bad bit at the end, why not have a life enjoying white bread :)

Sorry...I might have drifted off topic!!

Farmer Elvis
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby Farmer Elvis » Sun Aug 30, 2015 11:14 pm

singlespeedscott wrote:Time to bring back good old wool :? -
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Image
Unfortunately in the scouring process of cleaning wool, it is horrific on the environment, so the clean green image of wool, is not what we'd like.

Trevtassie
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby Trevtassie » Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:24 am

Ever wondered why girls are developing early these days? Estrogen mimicing chemicals in bread wrappers. Breast cancer too. Asthma? Formaldehyde in carpet glue and chipboard!
So you could take the attitude, well I don't care, I'm gonna die anyway... or you could try and choose products that don't have a good go at killing you painfully when you can. You can get low VOC paint, carpet and chipboard. Plasticisers are a harder one to avoid, yep, you can get BPA free waterbottles and suchlike, but avoiding them in disposable products is much harder.

Until consumers start lobbying, manufacturers will keep dumping the cheapest crap on us they can. Bad for us as consumers and bad for the poor buggers making the stuff.

It's not about living longer, it's about being able to do more in the short time we have...

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foo on patrol
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby foo on patrol » Mon Aug 31, 2015 11:16 am

Estrogen in bread wrappers, WTH ?

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kb
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby kb » Mon Aug 31, 2015 12:54 pm

foo on patrol wrote:Estrogen in bread wrappers, WTH ?

Foo
Tend not to eat those too much. I'd worry more about the phytoestrogens in hops and beer :-)
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Re: Sweat it out: could your sportswear be toxic?

Postby Dreams V Reallity » Tue Sep 01, 2015 2:19 pm

Don' eat bread wrappers. Fortunately all the phytoestrogens I drank didn't make the missus deliver kittens, either.
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