Clothing firms deceive consumers with wrong labeling

10 Feb '10

2 min read

A consumer regulator said that, the New Zealand consumers would have been bewildered owing to the “misleading” claims by the clothing companies.

As the Consumer NZ raised issues that the labels may be deceiving to the consumers, Kiwi companies dealing in bamboo clothing have started updating their labels.

Most of the clothes sold in shops were labeled as made of bamboo, but were originally made from rayon or viscose. This was revealed by a Consumer NZ study, published in its magazine's February issue.

According to the Consumer NZ, companies attributing their clothes as 'made from bamboo' are deceiving the customers as rayon or viscose is a fibre made from plants and trees, comprising of bamboo and prepared through a chemical process and thus, they should be labeled as such.

The report also elevated issues regarding the clothing manufacturers who promote their bamboo clothes as anti-bacterial. During previous year the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that, bamboo-based textiles which are actually made of rayon are not antimicrobial or prepared in an eco-friendly pattern and are neither biodegradable.

The FTC held four US companies with misleading labels and marketing the items originally made of rayon as 'made of bamboo'. Also it observed that, "rayon does not retain any natural antimicrobial properties of the bamboo plant".

Wendy Riley, NZ Nature's Communications Manager, stated that the company was reconsidering the pattern in which its bamboo products were labeled. The bamboo clothing range is advertised by the company as anti-bacterial and eco-friendly but the products were originally prepared by converting bamboo into viscose, Riley added.

Meredith Barry-Walsh, the co- owner of Baby clothes maker Green Bean, stated that by March or April, it intends to label its product as 95 percent rayon from bamboo.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India