Association

What is it?
The Associazione Tessile e Salute (Health and Textile Association, ndt) was born from the innovative idea of bringing in communication two sectors: the textile sector and the healthcare sector. They both interact every single day with our "skin", but they were very far away one from the other.
The objective is promoting and favouring meetings and experience sharing between four components: (production and distribution) industry, healthcare world, consumers and research bodies.
TeS pursues the aim of guaranteeing to end consumers the safety and the transparency of textile products and at the same time of making them aware of the ethical, social and environmental values rooted in the material and immaterial contents of the textile production.
The association groups all actors which, at the national level, are interested in developing the textile sector taking into great account the safety of the product and the health of end consumers. Its European reference point is represented by the Joint Research Center - Institute for Health and Consumer Protection of Ispra.
The Associazione Tessile e Salute is an impartial, no-profit body, whose chairman is also the Director of the Prevention Department of Asl 12 (Local Health Unit, ndt) of Biella and the representative of the National Hygienist Society.
The association's Managing Committee:
* Federchimica/Assofibre,
* Federazione SMI/ATI,
* ISS
* ISPESL
* Asl 12 of Biella,
* Clinica del Lavoro - University of Turin,
* Confartigianato,
* CNA,
* Coop Italia
* SIDAPA,
* National Hygienist Society,
* CCIAA of Biella - Unioncamere,
* UIB,
* AICTC
* CNR-ISMAC
* JRC-Ispra

In addition, it is supported by the major national textile and health scientific societies and by the national consumers' associations, the latter representing a non-formal presence, but at the same time a real guarantee for the commitment of the association towards the needs of end consumers.

Activity fields
The Associazione Tessile e Salute is active in many fields which are all linked one with the other.
First of all it works for making the textile products safe, that means providing Italy with instruments, to be agreed and shared with the healthcare world, the industrial world and consumers' associations, able to prevent the circulation on the Italian territory of textile products which release harmful substances for consumers' health. This action also aims at valorising quality products.
It supports research activities: the association knows the real and diffused needs of the population and it can provide enterprises with "ideas" for producing innovative textile products and for creating new businesses.
Textile companies need to create complex and multifunctional products, featuring high technological contents, and, according to the Associazione Tessile e Salute, this is possible only when working on the basis of different disciplines, in particular chemistry, physics and biology.
Due to the complexity of the relevant projects, in the near future, the main pillar for the textile development will be "networks" that allow synergies between companies, research and training bodies, professional associations and consumers' associations. The Associazione Tessile e Salute represents a good example of such a network.
The association is also directly active in research projects. The LATT (High Textile Technology Laboratory of Biella) is equipped with a climatic chamber where, in cooperation with the Politecnico of Turin, the relationship between our skin and different textile products is studied, and tested on men.
As far as dissemination activities are concerned, the association has organised six International Meetings focused on the most advanced textile-related researches, offering a meeting point for researchers, producers and scientific and sanitary societies. The objective was once again the implementation of cooperation activities and research projects for fulfilling the different needs of human beings.
As for the field of education, the activities carried out by the association during these years have led us to consider the importance of integrating both sensitizing and dissemination activities with educational activities aimed at creating a new awareness among textile workers and designers. Thanks to Città Studi we have implemented in Biella a postgraduate Master in "Textiles and Health".
In the field of consumers' education, the association will help to guide citizens towards consuming products with no risks for our health and with a high technological content, and manufactured according to environmental and sustainable criteria.
In June 2007 a new course addressed to consumers' associations took place: "How to identify quality and functions of textile products as well as their potential health-related risks".

The activities carried out by the association
Since its institution, in 2001, the association has carried out the following activities:
- 6 International Meetings with the presence of researchers from all over the world
- Seminars and technical meetings with researchers, physicians and entrepreneurs
- A data bank of the chemical substances to be found in textile production processes and final products, in cooperation with ISPESL, Federchimica and Istituto Superiore di Sanità
- A sampling work, and subsequent laboratory analysis, in the form of a fact-finding research, of textile products which are present in the large-scale retail trade, in cooperation with ISMAC and Crab of Biella
- A standardisation of analytical methods for finding heavy metals in textiles, in cooperation with 5 Italian laboratories
- One postgraduate Master in Textiles and Health
- Numerous fact-finding surveys in cooperation with consumers' associations and dermatologists.


Acknowledgments by the Ministry of Health
Thanks to the activities carried out and to the competencies of the Network of the Associazione Tessile e Salute, in September 2006, the Ministry of Health has approved and funded the two-year project presented by the Association and titled "Creation of a national observatory for assessing health-related risks deriving from textile products". The project aims at understanding the real scope of the health-related risks linked with the use of textiles.
This project foresees:
- The completion of the data bank of the chemical substances to be found in textile production processes and final products; this activity began thanks to the previous funding granted by ISPESL
- A national observatory on contact dermatitis in end user of textile products, in cooperation with SIDAPA
- A sampling of textile products to be found in Italy, with previous standardisation of analytical methods and observation criteria for identifying the substances which are present in fabrics, in cooperation with ITIS Buzzi of Prato, CNR-Ismac of Biella, Joint Research Centre of Ispra and other Italian laboratories.

Partners
In order to reach its numerous objectives the association will coordinate, at a national level, the contributions of many bodies; most of them are already working with Tessile e Salute on these themes. Among the others there are:
Istituto Superiore per la Prevenzione e la Sicurezza del Lavoro ISPESL, Istituto Superiore di Sanità ISS, Società Italiana di Dermatologia Allergologia Professionale e Ambientale SIDAPA, Federchimica, Asl 12 of Biella, Regional Observatory on Allergies, ITIS Buzzi of Prato, CNR-Ismac of Biella, Joint Research Centre of Ispra, Textile laboratories.