C&EN SPCClSl
Stephen C. Stinson, Assistant Editor
Textile finishes to top $1 billion in 70s Industry prosperity will come as solutions are found to problems of worker safety, rising consumerism, and ecological problems Textile men get together this Wednesday in Boston, Mass., with suppliers of processing and finishing chemicals at the annual technical conference of the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists. Processing and finishing chemicals houses are in the thick of conflicting currents of pollution, consumerism, and worker safety, as they try to see the future of their industry, whose sales will top $1 billion yearly this decade, exclusive of dyes. All in all, textile men and their chemicals suppliers face a rough ride to prosperity. Some of the problems that doubtless will be discussed are: • Worker safety, which is increasingly prominent as indicated by recurring concern about formaldehyde fumes in durable-press garment processing, noise in mills, and byssinosis, an occupational lung disease of textile workers. • The same water pollution issue that cut starch warp sizing sales growth to zero in the 1960's may bring a bonanza to starch sellers in the 1970's as philosophy changes. • MiD s will call on chemicals suppliers to help make good on promises inscribed on garment-care labels, soon to be required by the Federal Trade Commission. • Polyester-cotton blends remain the bugbear of mills trying to meet present and future standards, as areas covered by the Flammable Fabrics Act continue to grow. Supplier industry. Processing and finishing chemicals for textiles comprise the specialty market that might appeal to the U.S. chemical process industry in search of high-profit outlets for commodity chemicals. Processing chemicals, all the products that aid in washing, bleaching, and applying dyes to fibers and fabrics, will be worth al24
C&EN OCT. 4, 1971
most $300 million this year. Finishing chemicals, which remain with the goods to give particular properties to finished fabrics, will have sales of about $400 million in 1971. Servicing the industry requires high technical service content in products, however—10 to 15% of every sales dollar. Although large amounts of readily identifiable substances such as acetic and sulfuric acids, soda ash, caustic soda, formaldehyde, chlorine chemicals, and surface-active agents, are sold to this market, many chemical formulations tailored to highly specific uses are sold as magic recipes. Consequently, acquisition has been the preferred route into this market, with large chemical companies buying small formulating houses for personal contacts of service staff and know-how in purveying the magic formulations. Textile mills have not missed a chance to integrate into chemicals production, sometimes for in-house, sometimes for outside sale as well. Mills have usually formed their own subsidiaries, though acquisitions are known. Acquisitions of textile chemical houses by large companies peaked in 1969. The move to this high-profitability market was sparked in the 1960's by observations that the textile industry had turned to synthetics and blends of synthetic and natural fibers, says David Eggleston of Charles H. Kline & Co., Fairfield, N.J., marketing consultants. He also sees growth of carpet making as an inviting market for chemical companies at that time. Pricing of processing and finishing formulations is relatively inelastic, points out Nick Davy of McKinsey Co., New York City, management consultants. A product either does a job or it doesn't. Although imports of commodity chemicals for formulations may hit big companies, formulations themselves are relatively insensitive to this form of competition. The strategy of a small seller who discovers such a product is to come in priced as high as he can, expecting to be forced down as competitors note and copy his success. Small size. Textile chemical firms may employ fewer than 10 persons total. Research and development in
customer service and formulation development can sometimes be done inhouse, but small firms can very often compel large raw materials suppliers to do their R&D. Considering the great number of acquisitions, the number of independent companies remaining might be small. Actually, many remain independent in this highly Balkanized world, and new companies spring up on every side. Although companies may be new to the field, the men who found them are invariably veterans—some are former mill superintendents. An industry consultant recounts the case of one of his clients who wished to acquire a small firm. On investigation, he discovered that the small firm's prosperity depended on the personality and contacts of one man. "Welcome to our conglomerate, you're fired," would be the last thing to be said in a case like that. Mr. Davy has run across a similar personality—a salesman for a textile chemicals supply firm who earns $50,000 a year. New companies. Two new companies are Hydrolabs, Inc., Newark, N.J., and
Sales of protective sizing, being applied here to fibers preparatory to weaving at Burlington Industries plant in Virginia, will run about $50 million this year
Pat-Chem, Inc., Greenville, S.C. Hydrolabs began business in March; PatChem is just opening for business. Hydrolabs president Ira Marxe left Jersey State Chemical Co., Haledon, N.J., where he was marketing manager, and was joined by Leonard Kalish, salesman. Mr. Marxe sets $2 million annual sales for first-year performance, and says that sales were running $1 million yearly this summer. The new company started by offering specialties aimed at knitting, currently the textile market rage. The Hydrotex process, for example, allegedly gives bulky feel to knits, together with drapability, dimensional stability, and good performance in cutting. Mr. Marxe is unschooled in chemistry, having picked up knowledge of chemicals, solution chemistry, formulation technology, and textile wet processing through long experience. He says he is able to call on raw materials suppliers for R&D help and analytical services. With nine men to cover the eastern seaboard from New England to South Carolina, Mr. Marxe says he uses all the help he can get.
Travel is a way of life for Hydrolabs personnel. The company often improvises complex arrangements to get a sample and a salesman to a customer's plant to close a sale. In the firm's New London, N.C., office, one representative is a southerner, a detail very important in selling to the southeastern-based textile industry where personal considerations are important. Pat-Chem was likewise founded by two veterans of the textile chemical industry. When textile manufacturer Graniteville Co., Graniteville, S.C, decided to go into chemicals in 1969, management decided to acquire C. H. Patrick & Co., Greenville, S.C. C. H. Patrick, Sr., stayed with the company, but his sons C. Hugh Patrick, Jr., and Philip Patrick left to form Pat-Chem. Marketing projections from large prospective supplier companies encouraged the brothers to believe in a 1970's boom in synthetics surpassing anything seen in the 1950's or 1960's. Although they will not weight their line toward knitting, they will concentrate on synthetics processing. Moves into chemicals, like that of
Graniteville Co., benefit mills in several ways. Mills produce what they know how to do, and save on economies of manufacture. When durable-press resins first came in, poor quality caused yellowing. Some mills made resins until chemical companies improved products with expertise beyond the mills' abilities or desire to synthesize, and many mills left that area. Textile mills. Even the biggest textile makers use small finishing houses to handle small orders for specific purposes. Thus small finishing firms in New Jersey and New York service the high-fashion New York City market. By requiring purchase of chemicals by finishing houses from the mill's own subsidiary, a textile company can save materials costs of contracts. Selling from a mill-owned chemicalsproducing arm to individual mills of a company is not easy, though. Textile top management makes mill superintendents responsible for a profit. A mill manager's resistance to his own company's chemicals is common, and upper layers of management face problems of determining when local manager preference is mere prejudice, and of overruling the local man and ordering him to purchase in-house. Among textile manufacturers that entered chemicals manufacture by setting up a subsidiary, Burlington Industries formed Bi-Chem, Greensboro, N.C., about 1960. The chemicals division services the needs of the parent company. The company emphasizes that Bi-Chem exists because Burlington wants to have an alternate supplier for all chemicals, but that only a small amount is bought in-house and that the bulk of purchases come from outside. The textile chemicals division of J. P. Stevens & Co. was formed in 1965, says Dr. Frank X. Werber, vice president for research and development. The division makes less than 5% of sales outside the company, and Stevens has no outside sales effort. Dr. Werber mentions one resin finish for wool that sells well, though other sales are sporadic. Stevens does considerable chemical research and makes arrangements outside the company to exploit interesting products. Started OCT. 4, 1971 C&EN 25
Sales of sizing and easy-care resins lead finishing resins market Type of finishing resin
Coating and backing Sizing
1968
1969
SALES, MILLIONS OF DOLLARS 1970 1971 1972 1973
1974
1975
$230.0 $233.5 $220.7 $242.8 $264.9 $291.4 $320.5 $352.5 49.1
49.2
48.7
49.7
50.7
51.7
52.7
53.8
Binding
27.6
28.0
26.6
29.0
31.6
34.5
37.6
41.0
Easy care
29.2
29.7
27.9
30.8
32.0
35.2
38.8
42.7
Water and soil repellent
29.1
29.4
28.4
30.0
31.7
33.5
35.4
37.4
Hand modifiers and softeners
20.2
20.3
19.8
20.7
21.6
22.6
23.6
24.6
Other
11.8
11.9
12.4
13.5
14.7
15.9
17.2
18.7
Total
$397.0 $402.0 $384.5 $416.5 $447.2 $474.8 $525.8 $570.7
a Includes soil-release and flame-retardant agents.
Source: C&EN estimates
in an old textile mill in Piedmont, S.C., the division moved into a new $2 million plant in 1970, also in Piedmont. Stevens policy is that the company will buy no more than half its chemicals needs in-house. Dr. Werber explains that the company doesn't want to discourage outside suppliers from efforts to sell to Stevens. Thus the company benefits from in-house knowhow and manufacturing economies, while taking advantage of innovations by outside sellers. There is more freedom for exchange of proprietary information between Stevens mill managers and the chemicals division to solve problems, he says. Final decisions on where to buy chemicals rest with mill managers, however. West Point-Pepperell also formed a chemicals manufacturing division called Grifftex, in Opelika, Ala., in 1969. The parent says that Grifftex makes finishes, softeners, and water repellents, and that formation of the division consolidated West Point-Pepperell's use of chemicals. DeeringMilliken formed Sylvan Chemical Co., Inman, S.C. United Merchants & Manufacturers has three subsidiaries formed to sell to the textile industry. Valchem, Langley, S.C, sells textile processing and finishing chemicals. Roma Chemical, Fall River, Mass., makes dyes and pigments. Umex, Inc., New York, N.Y., imports chemicals and textile machinery. UMM as a whole is deeply into plastics, glass, and chemicals, and reported sales of $65 million in that area for the year ended June 30, 1970. Dan River Mills, Dan River, Va., be gan chemicals manufacture there in 1949, says L. Aubrey Goodson, vice president for research. Quality problems arose in fabrics, he says, and Dan River chemists came up with solutions. The company decided to make rather than buy the chemicals needed
to solve the problems. During the Korean conflict, in-house capability eased chemicals supply problems and confirmed the company in its decision to manufacture. Some Dan River finishing agents are sold on a licensing and distributing arrangement. Textile makers that have acquired chemical companies are Graniteville Co. and Cone Mills Corp. Cone Mills bought 91% of stock in dyes manufacturer Otto B. May Co., Newark, N.J., in 1958; the remaining 9% is owned by company president Ernest May. Cone is also in polyurethane foam manufacture for furniture through Olympic Products Co., Greensboro, N.C., formed in 1960. Sizing resins. Use of chemicals in textile mills has been beset by problems since states began passing stream pollution laws in the early 1960's. One of the first finishes to fall under the environmentalist's baleful eye was starch for warp sizing. Sizing imparts temporary strength to the warp, or stationary, fibers, while the weft fibers are passed back and forth in the weaving of a fabric. Starch sizing, used in cellulosic fibers, is then removed from woven fabric by enzyme hydrolysis or chemical oxidation, as with sodium bromite. In the early 1960's, some mills shifted to carboxymethylcellulose for warp size, because of the lesser amount of biological oxygen demand (BOD) of that material. Carboxymethylcellulose use by the textile industry is running 10.2 million pounds this year, worth $4.4 million. Polyvinyl alcohol has always been a preferred warp size for synthetic fibers. The industry will use 39 million pounds of polyvinyl alcohol in 1971, worth $12.5 million. Neither of these compounds consumes dissolved oxygen in streams as rapidly as starch on biodégradation.
26 C&EN OCT. 4, 1971
In this decade, however, pressure is on mills to build water treatment plants so that discharge into streams will meet more stringent standards. Starch decomposes more easily in a treatment plant, thus starch may return to popularity by 1974-76, according to Leonard Wood, technical vice president of National Starch & Chemical Corp.'s industrial starches division. Among other large producers of starch warp sizes are A. E. Staley Manufacturing Co., Decatur, 111., National Starch, which acquired textile chemical producer Proctor Chemical Co., Inc., Salisbury, N.C., in 1969, and CPC International, Englewood Cliffs, N J . Staley bought textile chemical maker Charlotte Chemical Laboratories, Charlotte, N.C., in 1969. CPC bought Wica Chemicals, Charlotte, N.C., in 1967. James Eisner, president of CPC's industrial division, says, "Among the most dangerous fallacies put upon people was the idea that products with a high BOD were bad." He says that CPC is concentrating on combining starch and polyvinyl alcohol for a material that will be cheaper than pure PVA and easier to desize, but with advantageous properties of PVA. National Starch's Mr. Wood notes that only about 5% of monies earmarked by the Federal Government for municipal treatment plant construction have actually been allocated. He expects the logjam to break up in 1972 with a rash of construction. Thereafter, highly biodegradable components in effluent will be the order of the day. Meanwhile, Mr. Wood thinks that hot-melt sizing based on polyvinyl acetate resins might be attractive. Desizing in alkali might recover 70 to 80% of the sizing resin for re-use, he says. More efficient sizing techniques might require only a few yarns to be sized during weaving, he thinks, with resultant cutting to one third of sizing resin used. National Starch never went over to polyvinyl alcohol or carboxymethylcellulose in the 1960's, he says. The company instead worked on modified starches with low BOD. Today, the research push is toward modified starches to favor synthetics. Soil release. Another orphan of the textile chemicals industry that may soon have a bright, new future is soilrelease resin technology. Although elimination of phosphates from detergents is by no means certain or even to be desired, reduction of detergent cleaning power might bring soil-release finishes into their own, thinks Edward Shanley of Arthur D. Little, Inc., Cambridge, Mass. Manu-
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Reprints from Chemical & Engineering News Keeping broadly informed challenges every person today. If you missed these features from recent issues of C&EN, you can still get copies by filling in the coupon below.
Office
Copying
Howard J. Sanders, C&EN July 13, 1964
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Report describes in detail the history and op erating methods of a wide range of office copying processes. 71364
Outlook
'71
Walter S. Fedor Technomic Publishing Co. Stamford, Conn. October 19, 1970
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The economic facts clearly show that produc tion and profits are down in the manufactur ing industries and, as a consequence, unem ployment is up. However, the posting of a slight gain in the 1970 recession climate augurs well for the chemical industry's future when the economy resumes upward move ment. 10190
Rubber
Technology
Earl V. Anderson, C&EN July 14, 1969
David M. Kiefer, C&EN October 5, 1970
50^
50^
Antipollution forces bring marked changes to the petroleum refining industry. Some of the problems unthought of 10 years ago are: Dwindling sources of raw materials and possi ble changes in the oil import program; vocif erous demands for low-lead and unleaded gas oline; pollution controls and demands that af fect decisions on raw materials, processing equipment, and marketing. 11970
The Steel
Industry
H. Clifford Neely, C&EN September 21, 1970
50tf
Sometime in the late 1950's, the industry be gan to look at iron- and steel making as unit operations in which a better knowledge of the kinetics of competing reactions was needed. Chemists and chemical engineers have pro vided the necessary knowledge. 92170
U.S. Will Lag U.S.S.R. in Raw Materials Dr. Raymond Ewell State University of New York Buffalo, N.Y.
Aug. 24, 1970 Domestic supplies of raw materials have fallen sharply in past 20 years. New, more sophisticated techniques of discovery need to be developed to expand North American sources of minerals. Greater recycling of all nondegradable materials is going to become imperative. 82470
F2
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Today's rubber company reaches out in many directions. The traditional rubber products are still vital, to be sure. But rubber com pany interests now extend back to petrochem ical raw materials for their elastomers and spill over into other chemicals, textiles, met als, aerospace, nuclear energy and, most im portant of all, into plastics. 71469
Technology assessment is an attempt—still halting and uncertain—to establish an earlywarning system to control, direct, and, if nec essary, restrain technological development so as to maximize the public good while mini mizing the public risks. 10570
Artificial
Electronics
Organs
A 2-part feature Howard J. Sanders, C&EN April 5 and 12, 1971
75tf
The implanting of a total artificial heart in a human has been the most dramatic single advance to date in the field of artificial or gans. In recent years, however, many other artificial organs have also been developed, and scientists foresee a vast increase in the number of body parts that, in the years ahead, will be replaceable by mechanical de vices. 04571
Molecular Symmetry
Orbital Rules
Ralph G. Pearson Northwestern University Evanston, III. September 28, 1970
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Building
David M. Kiefer, C&EN May 10, 1971
50φ
The industry offers chemists sizable techno logical challenges in what is already a sizable market for a wide range of chemical products. 11307
Reaction mechanisms in both organic and in organic chemistry have been so extensively and successfully studied in past years that in the 1960's it seemed impossible that any revolutionary advance could occur in this field. Yet chemists' recent realization of the importance of orbital symmetry effects in chemical reactions must be considered in the major breakthrough category. 92870
Home
Industry
Lloyd W. Dunlap, C&EN November 30, 1970
Gasoline Bruce F. Greek, C&EN November 9, 1970
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Housing is an industry where tradition dies hard and innovation typically comes in steps that are barely perceptible. Yet beneath this apparently placid surface, rather sweeping changes are under way. 51071
TO:
REPRINT DEPARTMENT
ACS Publications 1155 Sixteenth St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 FROM:
Common Market: British Entry Seems Earl V. Anderson, C&EN May 24, 1971
Name
Certain 50φ
For the third time Britain is negotiating to join EEC; she will likely make it this time and U.S. chemical interests are certain to be af fected. 52471
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Accelerated aging test. Nopcone NYW {top left) and a popular competing coning oil {top right) were boiled at 200° C. for five minutes. Such a test represents what can happen during storage. The result, unretouched: Nopcone NYW {bottom left) is water-white, the competitor {bottom right) dingy yellow.
You'll wonder (but not worry) where the yellow went. Nopcone® NYW, an anti-static coning oil for tex tured yarns, provides superior lubrication. Shown here is an accelerated demonstration of its color resistance to heat and oxidation. It keeps your white yarns white even during prolonged and/or high-temperature storage. Not shown is the stickslip-free lubricity of Nopcone NYW, both at start-up and through the entire operation. Ask to see this, and to hear the entire Nopcone NYW story. Ask too about Nopcolube® 1056-A, a bal anced fiber lubricant for polyester cotton yarns. Heck, while you're at it, ask about all the 36 ways we have to help make what you make . . . better.
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facturers of soil-release resins are by no means as confident as Mr. Shanley in a bright future for their products. Soil-release makers had seen their sys tems debut and fade as an idea whose time had come—too soon. Dr. C. E. Warburton of Rohm and Haas Co., Spring House, Pa., at the Washington, D.C., meeting of ACS last month gave the Division of Cellulose, Wood, and Fiber Chemistry a look at the reason for failure of soil-release finishes. His electron micrographs il lustrated inhibiting effects that du rable-press finishing resins can exert on soil-release finishes when the two are applied from the same bath. Wettability of treated fabric gives soil release. Many finishers wanted to apply soil-release and durable-press finishes from the same bath in 1969 when the concept had its first trials. Savings in costs were important. Yet, says Dr. Warburton, soil-release polymer can be embedded in a matrix of dimethylolethyleneurea or dimethyloldihydroxyethyleneurea, and pre vented from swelling and coalescing. Many of these problems have been solved, he says, and soil-release fin ishes have been developed that can be applied from the same bath as du rable-press resins. Ironically, says Francis K. Burr, as sociate director of Fabric Research Laboratories, Inc., Dedham, Mass., the real spur to return of soil-release fin ishing might be current desires for antistatic finishing. Carboxylic acid groups of soil-release resins give fabrics conductive surfaces, which are
needed to dissipate static electricity. On the other hand, although antistatic finishing might be an obvious plus for lingerie or socks, benefits on polyestercotton shirts are questionable. The ones to really profit from the concern about cleanliness and soil re lease might be makers of starch or other products to be applied by laun dries or in wash products to be used in the home. Mr. Burr recalls that in the days of Chinese laundries, starch was an unavoidable blessing. The laundryman's concern was not only crisp shirts, he says, but soil-release properties of starch during the second stay of a shirt in the laundry. While fate of soil-release technology hangs on detergent phosphates, anti static finishing fads, and durable versus renewable soil-release ap proaches, fluorochemicals may run off with the market completely. The heavy consumer advertising of Scotchguard by 3M Co., Minneapolis, Minn., has conditioned consumers to appre ciate the hang-tag used by fabric makers who apply that soil-resistant finish. Although Du Pont's Zepel and Zeset are not nearly so well known to the public, those fluorochemical prod ucts share a $22 million yearly market with Scotchguard as soil and water repellents. Easy care. While makers of starch and soil-release resins wait to see if environmental concerns swing the marketing pendulum their way, com plaints about formaldehyde fumes from various stages of durable-press finishing rose to a new crescendo this
Canada begins a voluntary care-labeling program this autumn The labeling is based on a color code and symbols: Three colors, each has a meaning
^^k ^^P
Red means stop! The action represented by the symbol should not be carried out
Five basic symbols, each symbolizes one method of textile care
Ο
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Dry cleaning
Washing
Amber means that some caution is necessary
a
Pressing or ironing ^ ^ ^ ^^B ^^^
Green means that no special precautions are needed
Δ
Bleaching
D
Drying
Examples of the system are:
•&
Do not dry clean
28 C&EN OCT. 4, 1971
*=*
Do not wash
13
Hang to dry
% 160 F # May be washed in machine using hot water
summer. Levi Strauss & Co., San Francisco, Calif., announced in June that the company would reject fabric shipments bearing formaldehyde levels greater than 2000 ppm, meas ured by an AATCC test. Other gar ment makers followed suit. Sun Chemical Co., Chester, N.C., American Cyanamid Co., Bound Brook, N.J., and BASF, Ludwigshafen, West Germany, have announced products that they claim avoid objectionable formalde hyde. In August, consumer advocate Ralph Nader chided the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union in St. Louis, Mo., about complacency toward ex posure of workers to chemicals and noise. Neither Sun nor Cyanamid is willing to discuss the composition of their durable-press resins for low formalde hyde. Durable-press resins currently most used depend upon a process in volving urea, glyoxal, and formalde hyde, developed in the early 1960's by Koratron, San Francisco. The re sulting product, dimethyloldihydroxyethyleneurea, catalyzed by zinc nitrate, cross-links hydroxyl groups of adja cent cellulose fibers. Methylol groups can revert to formaldehyde when gar ments are pressed or oven cured to final shape. Excess formaldehyde, present in addition to formaldehyde that may come from methylol de composition, may be released from fabrics during application or during final cure. Dr. J. David Reid of the Department of Agriculture's Southern Regional Re search Laboratory, New Orleans, La., says his group has used ethyleneurea to sop up released formaldehyde. Meanwhile, he says, taking care not to include excess formaldehyde in formulations eliminates that source of irritating fumes. Washing gar ments after curing would remove re sidual formaldehyde, but durablepress reactant sellers must reckon without a final washout by garment makers. Care labeling. Performance of tex tiles and their finishes is the concern of the Federal Trade Commission, charged with rule making on care labeling. The situation has dragged on for a few years, with FTC com missioners and staff unable to agree on a rule. The textile industry, mean while, has awaited the outcome, hop ing that some items will be exempted from the rules—lingerie, linings, work clothes, upholstery, and carpeting, for example. Groups such as the Apparel Research Foundation have worked toward voluntary standards of care labeling to head off FTC before it adopts too stringent regulations. AATCC will hear a Canadian view on
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Polyvinyl alcohol sizing, the generally preferred sizing for synthetics such as this poly ester tow, is currently a $12.5 million market
care labeling this week from M. L. Staples of Ontario Research Founda tion, Toronto, Ont. Canada is be ginning a voluntary care labeling pro gram this autumn, based on a series of symbols to denote classes of treat ment—washing, drying, ironing, and bleaching—together with colorsgreen, amber, and red—to denote safety, caution, or danger in using particular methods of garment care. The Canadian Department of Con sumer and Corporate Affairs tells C&EN that label manufacturers have indicated to the government that stamped labels can be affixed perma nently to garments, obviating need for woven labels. Although the label system is voluntary in Canada, the government will strive to educate con sumers there to demand the label. When a recently passed law requir ing generic labeling by fiber identity takes effect, the Department of Con sumer and Corporate Affairs will push to have care labeling included on generic labels. On the other hand, if manufacturers elect to use care labels on garments, government label symbols must be used. Garment makers are responsi ble for truthfulness of labels used, the department says. It is possible that use of a label implies a warranty in Canadian law, and that lawsuits might arise from care labels worn, like an old school tie, without cause. Garment makers must seek assur ances from fiber and other suppliers that a certain label may be used on a finished garment. Inability to show efforts to secure supplier assurances may render garment makers liable under the law, the department says. 30 C&EN OCT. 4, 1971
Thus although Canadian voluntary care labeling may not exactly parallel the situation faced by U.S. garment makers if FTC ever gets around to rule making in this country, the U.S. industry will be able to see images of its problems to come, refracted through the Canadian lens. Industry future. The future of textile chemical finishes is prosperous, but prosperity will come from an everchanging product mix. Shifting equi libria of starches, polyvinyl alcohol, carboxymethylcellulose, and other siz ing materials is only one such change. Silicones, now down to $2.5 mil lion yearly, probably will continue to lose ground to fluorochemicals, whose 1971 market may be $22 million, as water repellents. Textile mills regard cost of fluorochemicals as fearfully high, says Kline's David Eggleston, who surveyed textile finishing agent markets for the company in 1968. Drums of fluorochemicals cost more than $1000, he says, though a little goes a long way. Sellers might dilute fluorochemical finishes to cheapen the cost per drum, thus overcoming psy chological resistance of users, yet add enough to the price to increase profits respectably. Desired fiber properties will con tinue to be incorporated into the poly mer by fiber makers. Finishing-agent makers need not despair, however— there still will be a variety of proper ties needed on any one item that can not be incorporated by fiber makers. The number of such properties gives such a high number of possible com binations that fiber makers will never want responsibility for such varie gated inventories. Thus finishers and
their chemicals suppliers aren't likely to run out of business. Still, environmental regulations will bite heavily into the number of pos sible chemical entities used in finish ing and processing, thinks Herbert Terry, head of the chemistry section at Foster D. Snell, Inc., Florham Park, N.J., technological consultants. Tech nology assessment will levy a high cost on chemicals development in this in dustry, Mr. Terry says. Although in troduction of any one chemical for use in this market will be beset with problems, he says, the profits to be had from servicing textile mills' own requirements for biodegradable and otherwise ecologically acceptable for mulations will fuel a healthy growth in R&D in textile chemicals. The next waves of ecological con cern to break over textile mills and their chemicals suppliers might con cern bleaching and scouring, Arthur D. Little's Edward Shanley and Dr. Charles Gogek think. Scouring is a washing operation carried out on raw fibers to remove naturally occurring soil and impurities. Comparatively blameless in current ecological hassles, brighteners might come in for bad publicity from a so ciety that hears campaigns against too clean clothes. Better classed as dyes or tinting agents, Dr. Gogek says, brighteners, which are colored in the ultraviolet range, are keeping a low profile at the moment.
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