Look for the GRS Label in the Clothing You Buy

For centuries, the textile industry has been rife with abuses

GRS stands for the Global Recycled Standard, a voluntary set of guidelines followed by participating manufacturers. Many such companies are in the clothing industry.

“The Recycled Claim Standard (RCS) and Global Recycled Standard (GRS) are international, voluntary standards that set requirements for third-party certification of recycled input and chain of custody. The shared goal of the standards is to increase the use of recycled materials. The GRS includes additional criteria for social and environmental processing requirements and chemical restrictions.” (1)

Strict standards are applied to all steps in manufacturing processes. In order to gain GRS recognition, at least twenty percent of new textiles must contain recycled fibers.

So – although the clothing is not necessarily union made (that’d be a decided plus in my opinion), do watch for the GRS label.

(Note: it is possible to buy union-made clothing, but one must pointedly look for it. Set your browser to “union made clothing” to see some of the manufacturers and outlets.)

An aside: textile production long has been rife with labor abuses, from the slaves in the “King Cotton” economies to very recent times.

Recent times? Yes. The year 2013 saw the deadliest garment factory disaster in history: a building collapse in Bangladesh that killed 1,134 clothing workers. (2)

Sources:

(1) https://textileexchange.org/standards/recycled-claim-standard-global-recycled-standard/

(2) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-22635409