Worker health

Until recently, sandblasting was the most commonly used technique to achieve the highly popular “worn look” for jeans and other denim products. However, sandblasting has been getting an increasingly bad reputation due to the fact that it may expose workers to significant health risks. Many retailers have banned sandblasted products from their stores.
While the most commonly used substitute for sandblasting, potassium permanganate, meets industrial safety laws, it is still toxic for workers who handle this product and also has severe environmental side-effects (it falls under the highest water hazard class). Environmentally and socially conscious consumers and businesses alike would like to see potassium permanganate disappear as a bleaching agent. To this day, denim manufacturers have been looking for safe and viable alternatives.