The Clean Clothes Campaign has launched an appeal on jeans producers to stop sandblasting their products. Sandblasting can cause an acute form of the deadly lung disease silicosis. The practise puts the lives of thousands of sandblasting operators at serious risk. It's often performed in small workshops in the informal sector in jeans-producing countries like Bangladesh, Egypt, China, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico. Almost all of the jeans sold in Europe are produced in these countries. In Turkey alone, 46 documented cases of sandblasters contracting silicosis and dying have been registered. This is likely to be only the tip of the iceberg.

In other countries, there are no statistics available, but the numbers of casualties and potential future victims are estimated to be very high. The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), working together with the Solidarity Committee of Sandblasting Labourers in Turkey, demands from jeans producers that they guarantee that sandblasting is not part of their supply chains. A number of fashion companies and retailers have already banned the sale of such jeans, or publicly announced that the would phase it out over the next months. Amongst them are Levi-Strauss & Co. and Hennes & Mauritz (H&M).

The CCC also calls on the governments of jeans-producing countries to outlaw denim sandblasting, ensure that occupational health and safety rules are enforced, and provide disability pensions to sandblasters who contracted silicosis. Consumers in the importing countries can also contribute by assuring themselves that the jeans they buy have not been treated with the deadly process. From January onwards, the CCC will start a consumer action whereby all owners of a pair of jeans can send messages to jeans companies that refuse to ban sandblasting.

Appeal to end sandblasting in denim production worldwide

Sandblasting has become increasingly popular in denim production over the last twenty years and is being used in different production countries worldwide as a finishing method when treating denim. In order to follow the latest fashion trends and maximize the profits, companies and factory owners have put workers –knowingly or unknowingly- at deadly risks by using sandblasting techniques that are unsafe.

Medical reports from Turkey show that sandblasting-operators can develop an acute form of silicosis, a non-curable and potentially fatal lung disease, in only 6-24 month of work. Workers in the sandblasting sector are often young, migrants, and engaged in the informal economy. They belong to the most vulnerable group of workers. Besides serious health problems, they also face the lack of support and compensation for the financial extra burden that was caused due to the illness.

We, the undersigned organisations and individuals, call to globally end the use of sandblasting in the denim production.
We call upon:

1. Brands to immediately stop the use of sandblasting throughout their supply chains. To that end, we demand that companies announce publicly that they ban sandblasting in their supply chain. We demand that they make sure that this ban is enforced by using adequate monitoring processes in co-operation with local/factory-based trade unions and NGOs. In addition, we demand that brands take the responsibility to ensure that workers in their supply chains that have already been affected by silicosis receive adequate compensation, and to also ensure compensation for workers and their families for the financial extra burden that was caused due to the illness (e.g. inability to work) as well as to provide them with the necessary financial support for the medical treatments. We also demand brands to preventively perform risk assessments when new production methods are introduced.
2. The national governments to not allow sandblasting in the denim production. We demand from them to make sure that the ban for manual sandblasting and generally the occupational health and safety rules to improve the working conditions are being enforced. In addition, we ask that the workers already affected by silicosis get support, social and medical assistance and disability pensions from the State, regardless if they worked in the formal or informal sector.
3. The ILO and WHO to include the denim-production chains as part of their global programmes to eradicate silicosis (1).
4. The Multi-Stakeholder-Initiatives and Business-Initiatives dealing with labour standards in the garment industry to use their influence to move their members to ban sandblasting throughout their supply chains
5. The consumers to only buy jeans that are sandblast-free.
6. Designers to stop proposing fashion trends that lead to the application of unsafe and potentially fatal techniques like sandblasting in the denim production.

1: The ILO/WHO Joint Committee on Occupational Health launched in 1995 a Global Programme on the Elimination of Silicosis from the world by 2030. The objective of this Task Force is to further develop and implement this programme, to encourage every country to develop its own national silicosis elimination programme, and to provide a knowledge base for countries that wish to launch a national programme. http://www.who.int/occupational_health/topics/en/oehtf4.pdf