Creating interactive merged MRSL and RSL to meet buyers’ requirements, while producing recent fashion demand from brands by AOP printing

Abstract

Due to the increasing awareness about meeting RSL and MRSL, failure to declare safe products makes negative publicity for the brands. Today to comply with customer demand, every responsible company or brand has its RSL and MRSL. This huge number of RSL and MRSLs create confusion and often works against their purpose which results in RSL, MRSL test failure, wastage, increased costs and distrust from the buyers.

Our project’s concern is to make an interactive merged RSL and MRSL tool where we can compare among the restricted limits of a certain chemical according to selected brands and take the most stringent limit as standard for AOP. Thus, our confusion towards RSLs, MRSLs of myriads of brands will be diminished, data will be managed neatly and there will be an educated selection of raw materials.

Moreover, our study also shows that it is possible to purchase cheaper but same quality chemicals from second and third-tier suppliers where we can save costs from 15-25% and at the same time comply with the buyers in terms of MRSL, RSL.

So, by complying with RSL, MRSL to make our final products safe for human beings and the environment efficiently with this interactive tool along with a reduced cost, we can build our reputation as sustainable manufacturers, get more orders and ultimately make more profit.

Keywords:

Interactive merged MRSL, RSL, Unified MRSL, RSL, Meeting MRSL, RSL in AOP Printing, Environmental sustainability

Introduction

As there are a lot of MRSL, RSL versions available, the sheer number of them create confusion and often work against the purpose they are used. [1] Failing to comply with the MRSL, RSL proposed by a buyer results in a great loss of trust and money. So, our concern of the project is to create such an interactive tool that can help us to purchase chemicals boldly from the right suppliers with lesser price, build trust and get repeated orders.

Along with the classic reactive, disperse and pigment printing, nowadays there is a recent fashion demand for glitter, puff, foam, discharge and metallic printing in AOP (All Over Printing). Complying with the MRSL, RSL for these types of AOP Printing is the scope of our project.

Though there are rules and regulations towards the use of harmful chemicals in products, unfortunately, these are still all around us for which we may be exposed to a myriad of hormone disruptors, neurotoxins, dermal sensitizers, asthmagens, or carcinogens. [2]

The consumers’ awareness of health and the environment has created urgency for the brands.  As a checklist of restricted chemicals, all the concerned buyers use MRSL and RSL which stand for Manufacturing Restricted Substances List, Restricted Substances List respectively.

These are created to indicate substances considered harmful or hazardous, which should ultimately not be found in any apparel item. MRSL targets all chemicals used in the manufacturing process of an apparel item and RSL considers only the chemicals that end up on the finished garment. [3]

But today, each brand has RSL and MRSL of their own which implies that there are a lot of lists that the suppliers and the manufacturers need to be aware of.

To solve this problem, Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) has been working to harmonize environmental standards across the global textile and footwear value chain. According to them, one of the issues they hear repeatedly is frustration from all levels of the value-chain at the wide range of standards – governmental, and brand initiated – and lack of coherency between them. As a solution for the industries, they came up with ZDHC MRSL. [4]

There are also some attempts to unify RSLs of different brands like AFIRM Group but still, there is a trend of brand-initiated MRSLs and RSLs which need to be managed.

Our project’s concern is to make an interactive merged RSL and MRSL tool where we can compare among the restricted limits of a certain chemical according to selected brands and take the most stringent limit as our standard RSL. The merged RSL, MRSL will be easy, interactive and work like an application that will generate a comparison.

Thus, our confusion will be diminished, data will be managed and there will be an educated selection of raw materials according to the most stringent limits suggested in our comparison.

As the ECR (Environmental Chemical Responsible) Department doesn’t always have the scope to analyze the needs like the application engineers’ perspective, with our interactive MRSL, RSL tool, the application engineers can also assist to take prompt and bold decisions and can create options to purchase cheaper but same quality chemicals from second and third-tier suppliers by mentioning particular RSL/MRSL limits where we can save costs from 10-25%.

Our scope is roll-to-roll AOP Printing chemical selection. We will explore various AOP printings’ raw materials listing and its RSL & MRSL parameters and finally we will come to a result by describing the process, raw materials & cost for achieving fashion effects with meeting RSL & MRSL.

Project methodology

Quantitative part:

• At first, we collected the RSLs of the 12 most common brands that place AOP. The RSLs are from AFIRM, ALDI, American Eagle, Bluesign, G-Star RAW, H&M, HUGO BOSS, IKEA, Levis Strauss & Co., Marks and Spencer, OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 and PUMA. We did the same for MRSL. For that, we collected the ALDI and Kaufland MRSL 2018.

  

• As our scope is AOP Printing, we chose 8 types of most common AOPs which are: 1. Pigment, 2. Rubberized, 3. Reactive, 4. Metallic, 5. Foam/puff, 6. Disperse, 7. Glitter and 8. Discharge printing and collected their photos.
• We selected the most common restricted substances that are found in lab testing for each type of AOP Printing. For example: in pigment printing products, the possibility to get heavy metals, azo and organic compounds is the most. Likewise, we developed categories for each of the printings’ most found restricted substances in the tests.
• After that, we studied each of the brand’s RSL and combined them into one within a certain chemical group. For example: Heavy metal is a restricted substance and brands have their restricted limit for each heavy metal. Eg. We took each brand’s restricted limit for Arsenic and input the numbers against each brand. We did likewise for every heavy metal. In the same way, we recorded data for all the other groups of restricted chemicals such as Organotin compounds, Azo compounds, Formaldehydes, Phthalates, Flame retardants, etc. We did the same for MRSLs.
• For each substance group, a Pivot Table in MS Excel is made to compare among a chemical’s selected brands’ restricted limits and show the most stringent limit with an interactive visual representation.
• We did a cost analysis for Top standard, 2^nd, 3^rd standard and non-standard sources and found that we can save 15-25% cost still maintaining MRSL and RSL.

Qualitative Part:

In the qualitative part, we arranged structured interviews and recorded them by note-taking. Each interview time was at least 10 minutes.

The number of participants was 9 and their occupations were Industry expert (Factory GM), academicians, CEO, Chemical advisor and lab assistants. They were chosen according to their job interest and expertise in chemical management and sustainability. They participated anonymously.

The Interview questions were:

1. How important is it to maintain MRSL and RSL for textile and garment factories?
2. Can our Interactive merged RSL and MRSL help us effectively to see a comparison among the brands’ RSLs that placed orders and make educated decisions about the substances’ limits?

A summarized reply to the first question: Maintaining MRSLs and RSLs are extremely important to protect the workers, consumers and the environment along with ensuring the goodwill and profit of the business.

And for question number: 2, seven out of nine participants replied positively. One participant suggested that the solution lies in a government approach.

In our second interview, we have studied the chemical suppliers by dividing them into 4 types: Top standard, 2^nd, 3^rd and non-standard sources. We collected the prices from the chemical manufacturers and made charts comparing the four types of suppliers according to each type of printing and their raw materials.

Key outcomes/result or discussion

The interactive merged MRSL, RSL tool has a homepage that contains all the AOP Printing categories and each of them is hyperlinked to separate pages of their own.

Clicking on any category like Pigment printing, takes the user to a separate page like the following screenshot.

From Pigment printing’s home, we can choose any of the groups like heavy metals, azo or organotin compounds and go to a new designated page like the following:

Figure 6: Designated page for heavy metals. Here we can see the comparisons.

In this page, we can select the brands and the heavy metals which we want to know about and compare. In this case, we have chosen AFIRM, ALDI and Bluesign RSL for brand and Antimony, Arsenic and Cadmium for substance. As a result, we can get the restricted limit for each brand and the most stringent limit for each substance as a suggestion.

We have also seen in our project that it is possible to source from the 2nd or 3rd standard sources and save around 15-25% cost while complying with the requirements. We have studied the sources by dividing them into 4 types: Top standard, 2^nd, 3^rd and non-standard sources.

We have interviewed the chemical manufacturers for the prices and made charts comparing with the four types of suppliers according to each type of printing and their raw materials. From an ethical standpoint, we are not mentioning any company’s name in this study.

The cost analysis we studied as per each printing type and their raw materials is given below:

Pigment Printing: In Pigment printing, the main raw materials are binder, pigment color and fixing agent. Binder from top standard source (guaranteed RSL, MRSL compliant raw materials) will cost over US$ 1.60/kg. Whereas materials from non-standard sources (no guarantee of RSL, MRSL compliance) will cost around US$ 0.80-0.90/kg, the cost difference between these two sources is about 77-100%.

Though profitable in terms of money, it is risky to source from non-standard ones. The top sources are from European/Multinational Origin, the remaining 2^nd& 3^rd sources are of Asian origin whose price is less than US$1.40/kg. If purchased from the 2^nd or 3^rd standard source, we can save our cost from the top standard source around 15-25% still maintaining the MRSL, RSL.

Rubberized Printing:

Metallic printing:

Glitter Printing:

Foam or Ppuff:

Reactive printing:

Disperse printing:

Discharge Printing:

Conclusion and further works          

In our project, we have seen that our interactive merged RSL and MRSL crafted for AOP printing products can help the manufacturers to comply with the restricted substances lists of brands to ensure their trust and to help to push the industry away from getting confused with too many chemical standards.

Because of choosing a chemical’s most stringent limit from our interactive list, we can automatically comply with the other brands keeping the cost in mind. We can also buy chemicals confidently from the second or third-tier suppliers by asking and ensuring proper restricted limits using the data derived from our interactive list and reduce the cost to 15-25%.

Thus, we can protect the workforce, the environment and the consumers while ensuring our profits. Further studies can explore the possibilities of a merged MRSL and RSL for other processes like dyed, washed, or other products and integrated supplier information. We can also include lesser-known MRSL, RSLs in our interactive tool.

As a whole, we can avoid the duplication of efforts to achieve the same results by using our interactive merged MRSL and RSL tools because the goal is common- to protect the workers, the consumers and the environment along with ensuring our long-term business profit.

Acknowledgment

This paper and the project would not have been possible without the exceptional support of my industry expert, Monirul Alam, Executive Director (Printing), DysinChem Ltd. I express my gratitude to Moksudul Alam, Senior Manager (Marketing), Md. Rafizul Hoque, Marketing Officer (Printing) from the same company.

My heartfelt gratitude goes to my academic supervisor Solaiman Bin Ali, Lecturer, Department of Wet Process Engineering, Bangladesh University of Textiles (BUTEX) for his inspiration in choosing my project related to printing and chemicals.

I would like to express my gratitude to Mohammad Omar Faruq, Senior Advisor- Chemical and Environmental Management System (EMS) at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH for answering my queries when I got stuck.

I strongly acknowledge Dysin-Chem Limited for their utmost support through giving laboratory facilities and funding the research. I am also thankful to all the members of Textile Today including my project coordinator Sanjoy Saha, Manager, Industry Engagement & Sub-Editor, Textile Today for his constant inspiration and push towards excellence.