In July, environmental group Greenpeace issued a report that charged the supply chains supporting a number of well-known apparel companies, including Nike and Adidas, were responsible for discharge of toxic chemicals into the environment, the result of actions by their Chinese manufacturers.

The Greenpeace report, titled Dirty Laundry: Unraveling the corporate connections to toxic water pollution in China, focused on two specific factories in China that it alleges were discharging a range of hazardous chemicals into the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas. Those two factories are the Youngor Textile Complex, is located on the Yangtze River, and the Well Dyeing Factory Limited, located on a tributary of the Pearl River.

Greenpeace tied those two facilities to a large number of well-known apparel brands, including Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, Bauer Hockey, Calvin Klein, Converse, Cortefiel, H&M, Lacoste, Li Ning, Meters/Bonwe, Nike, Phillips-Van Heusen, Puma and Youngor.

"Although some of these brands have Corporate Responsibility programs which partly address the environmental impact of their supply chain, none of the brands featured in this report have an effective strategy in place to deal with the problem of water pollution caused by industrial discharges containing hazardous substances," Greenpeace said. "At best, the majority of these programs are limited to ensuring that suppliers comply with local standards – most of which rarely consider the discharge of the hazardous and persistent chemicals highlighted in this report."

Greenpeace said that the 'wet processing' of textiles in China, including dyeing, washing, printing and fabric finishing, can lead to the discharge of large quantities of waste water containing toxic substances. The problem goes well beyond just the two factories focused on in this specific report,Greenpeace says, noting that the textile industry is responsible for 7.6% of China’s total trade volume, meaning many billions of dollars.

Several of the companies named in the report, however, said that that although they had commercial relationships with the two factories in the report, they did not use the controversial wet processes that Greenpeace says is the core part of the toxic discharge problem.

In a part 2 version of the report, Grenpeace in late August said its testing had found the presence of nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs) in items of clothing bought in the EU from a number of major brands, many the same as on the first list of supply chain offenders.

NPE is said to breaks down to form nonylphenol (NP), a persistent chemical with hormone-disrupting properties that builds up in the food chain and can prove hazardous even at very low levels.

In response to all this, Nike in announced in late August that it will be phasing out hazardous chemical byproducts from its manufacturing process, with an overall goal of zero discharge by 2020.

Along with its commitment to "water stewardship" and cleaning up its supply chain within a decade -- with priority placed on those chemicals most dangerous to consumers, factory workers, and the environment -- Nike said in a press release that it "supports a goal of systemic change ... green chemistry ... and a drive towards innovative solutions for transparency in chemical management disclosure."

Nike said it will unveil its plan for implementation by mid-October. Puma has made similar commitments.

Nike competitor Adidas now says it is talking to competing sportswear brands, including Nike and Puma, as part of efforts to develop an industry-wide commitment to detox the apparel supply chain. That would include establishing an industry-wide initiative to develop integrated chemicals management programs.

"We believe there needs to be an industry-wide approach and that's why we're trying to get together as a group," an Adidas spokesperson said. "We've already had first discussions with other brands and we've been in constant dialogue in the last couple of weeks."

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