Users are each time more informed and aware about the importance of high quality products, together with accomplishment of the legal requirements for safety and health protection. However, most of the times, we never stop to put this question whenever we buy a pair of shoes. We simply presume everything is right, but sometimes it is not.
With Ricardo Moreira da Silva, Ph.D. (Skypro Product Diretor)
There are hazardous, for example the presence of toxic substances, which can only be detected by laboratorial testing. Is important to keep in mind that: “You come into contact with chemicals every day[i]”. In a chemical exposure harmful substances can get into your body whenever you breathe, eat, drink them or, more common, in contact with your skin. People reactions may also differ in a chemical expose: if some people may be exposed to a chemical and never be harmed, others are more sensitive and get easily sick. Sometimes illness happens only if you are exposed to a harmful substance for a long time.
Toxic substances as chromium, cadmium, lead, nickel, azo dyes, chlorophenols, DMF, formaldehyde, phthalates among several others can be found in footwear. These substances are proven to be irritant, sensitizers, carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction and they will be permanently in chemical exposure with the skin of your feet. An even higher concern should exist for the professional footwear, since users wear these shoes for several hours, every working day, increasing the chemical exposure period.
But you may ask, there is not a Restricted Substances List (RSL) that bans these toxic substances from footwear? Yes, there are RSLs[ii],[iii], but the inclusion of a substance on this list is not forbidden. It is legal to place a product that contains the restricted substance on the market, as long as the appropriate information is available in the supply chain. Problem is that, for example in footwear, a full assessment of the chemical substances potentially present in footwear is not done, resulting in a absence of knowledge about substances really present.
How can this be overcome, so you could wear a safe shoe? At Skypro only innocuous materials are used in shoe production to ensure a maximum protection for exposure to toxic substance. A material is classified as innocuous when it is submitted to exhaustive testing at independent labs to the all range of potential chemical substances and get approval. Only by using innocuous materials in shoe production is possible to guarantee a final safe product. Skypro is the trusted brand for airline professionals because is devoted to find the best technical solutions that guarantee the safety, protection and well-being of every user.
