Greenpeace has warned of the following:

http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Outdoor-wear-not-very-green-20121029

What say you?

It seems to be specific to rain gear though.

So how do the local manufacturers, which most of us use, compare?

I wonder what the greenpeace workers wear when they do field trips to places such as those mentioned...

lol Brandon....Super true...I wonder what they wear?

hahaha yeah i think they should give out a list of their preferred suppliers..

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"an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"

At some point Greenpeace needs to realize that by man being on this planet, we are destroying it. Can we and should we mitigate this? Obviously, but man, do we have to go this far? I mean what about the amount of water that we consume, and the damage that causes (one liter of milk takes 1000L of water, and one 300g steak takes more water than the average person uses in showering for a year).

solvents, glues, tannin, meat, fuel....

chase the issues that are resolvable, and educate about the rest. Save the Riverine rabbit, Rhinos and other species- like you have done in the past, but realise that Earth will outlast man

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Sandbagging is a dirty game

Hemp and grass with wooden clogs

Odd one to target. I'm not surprised the clothing industry produces some bad chemicals, but I suspect they are a (literal) drop in the ocean compared to pollutants from chemical industry, plastic manufacture, "technology" production, oil and gas processing and a hundred other industries around the world.

My waterproofs are well over 5 years old, and if you buy quality and look after them there is no need to replace them too often. My driving to wherever every time I go climbing must have a much worse environmental impact.

GP mentions that the jackets tested were contaminated & "harmful to the reproductive system". Presuming they are refering to the reproductive system of the person in the jacket....this is great for the enviroment!

GP should sponsor a billion jackets

As for littering Everest & the Himalayas with corpses covered in the aforementioned outdoor kit...imagine the environmental impact that must have to these pristine places...

I suppose Patagonia would escape GP's attack as they are very responsible about the environment

Maybe we should figure out the damage we do with our gas guzzlers when we go climbing & plant a tree or something...lots of companies are doing that...

Beal: http://bealplanet.com/sport/anglais/con ... nment.html

Mammut: http://www.mammut.ch/en/cr_planet.html
https://d1qxh2iwg385ci.cloudfront.net/i ... ity_en.pdf


Some may say this is window dressing but its a whole lot better than nothing.

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Really, its not that bad...I think it's my shoes...

Not so - from article.

Gee in this case I would go with Patagonia...

check out the website: http://www.patagonia.com/us/environmentalism

AS far as I know these guys started the whole trend of worrying about what fibres the gear is made from. Maybe the journo who wrote the article didn't really look into this...

I suspect this group of Greenpea's were preaching to the choir...they should rather be taking on big industry...

This seems like a case of misdirected fundamentalism...surely they would be better going after the bad guys...

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Really, its not that bad...I think it's my shoes...

Pity throwing away contaminated jackets & buying Patagonia will lead to more process energy waste, more material waste, more contamination...more wages enabeling them (not us, our government gave our textile industry to the China) to reproduce more.

Green Peace should use the cyber-abyss to promote less breeding. Ja...less s.. , safe s.., voluntary vasectomies & sterilization++++

Nothing worse than hipocritical free love hippies, who also love the enviroment.

Ok so maybe I have looked into this too much but Patagonia are chief advocates on reduce, re use & recycle

http://www.patagonia.com/us/common-threads/

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/11/17 ... -recycling

So I would imagine that they would not advise you throw away your existing jackets...even if they do make you sterile... not always a bad thing...

Back to the original question,

do F A & Cape St*rm have responsible operations in SA & do they manufacture with nature friendly materials? What of their products made in the East/ wherever?

As mentioned previously maybe the desire for low cost comes before the environment...someone else was being all pc about how their down is collected...possibly a drop in the ocean compared to all the nylon we wear...

maybe bamboo & hemp clothes are the solution (with some wool thrown into the mix)...I see a great marketing opportunity here...

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Really, its not that bad...I think it's my shoes...

first Ascent have a Bamboo line of clothing (including socks) which to the best of knowledge is relatively friendly to the environment. They're also going to start a Merino wool line soon.

Not sure if Hemp would be 'technical' enough to use!?

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Climb ZA - Administrator

Came across this article from September 2011 (text below links to the full article).

Patagonia and eBay announced a new partnership, the Common Threads Initiative. Together, they asked owners of fleece and Gore-Tex everywhere to pledge to reduce consumption, reuse old gear, recycle, repair what's broken, and reimagine a world where people don't stress the earth with purchases.

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Climb ZA - Administrator

Wonder which does more damage: the Ski Jacket or the flights to Switzerland?

may I reiterate what was said above: by existing you consume and damage. if we were using bamboo or hemp we would then need large farms to produce it, which would then reduce local habitats of plants and animals, plus we still would need to convert the raw material to fibers which would involve chemicals.....

I agree that Greenpeace is preaching to the choir, why not attack PET bottled cokes? the answer is boring. yes, boring, less sensational, more common and far harder to resolve. I mean why demand that everyone drink out of glass 500ml bottles rather than PET? that would involve consumer information drives rather than squaring blame on one user group in a big publicity stunt. I emailed Greenpeace RSA regarding PET after emailing ABI, Penbev and Woolworths regarding the matter, interestingly Penbev and ABI are keen for it as its cheaper for them, which means cheaper for retailers (who then can increase margins) and still offer end users a cheap product. the reason why we haven't had a removal of PET bottles is customer demand, not supplier capacity.

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Sandbagging is a dirty game

As I said earlier, I agree it's an odd one to target, compared to motor industry for example. Maybe they see "us" as a target audience that may be persuadable and having an environmental conscience of some sort, as opposed to other industries which are regarded as a dead loss.

At least Patagonia appear to make an effort. "Let my people go surfing" is a worthwhile read, part for their history, part for their philosophies.