Sandablasting is the key method for finishing jeans, to give them “worn- out” look; after this process with sand jeans are smoothed, shaped and cleaned. This process is very fast and cheap but comes at a price: the health of workers. Intense use or long term exposure of this finishing may even lead to the contraction of fatal diseases such as silicosis or cancer.

More and more brands like H&M, Levi’s, D&G, Diesel, Zara have been outsurching the productions, because they can reduce production costs. Some of these brands had decided to eliminate unsafe sandblasting, but despite this fact a lot of them still use this finishing, often at night to avoid detection by audits or otherwise (this is called clandestine sandblasting ). The report of health problems that sandblasting produces uncovered the pressing need to INCREASE AWARENESS of the workers’ risks. ( Especially in Bangladesh, with scares of death in the sector every year). Silica dust: During the process of sandblasting workers are exposed to Silica dust, that can cause severe respiratory problems in them, in fact the human body in unable to expel Silica particles.

Sandblasting removes the dark indigo pigmentation from a garment, usually made of denim, giving it the poupular pre-worn look. The process involves smoothing, shaping and cleaning a hard surface by forcing abrasive particles across that surface at high speed using special tipes of sand. These are spryed onto the selected parts of the garment at high pressure to remove colour from these areas to create design.

Thanks to this resarch it is possible to know shocking informations about the conditions of workers in Bangladesh in the textile industry. Many of workers don’t know anything about what they do: for example only half of them know the brand for wich they work. They do strikes but sometimes they don’t even know their personal right. The majority of them don’t know if their factories needed or have a permit for sandblasting, in particulary because they said that the sandblasting is done in a building separated from the main factories and other production processes.

The process can be done manually or mechanically. Manually is prefered by factories because it is cheaper, since it doesn’t require investment in advanced and expansive industrial equipment. The most dangerous thing of mechanical process is that in sandblasting rooms the air is always dusty an affecting all people in the space. Responce of research : The research revealed that while for of the nine factories ( where the intervewee works ) have closed their sandblasting units, the majority were continuing to undertake both manual and mechanical sandblasting, exposing people to massime feed sand dust.

There is little information that state that the marks have officially replaced the sandblasting with other techniques, but they don’t assure us anything. So now they use a very simple method : METAL DETECTORS. Metal detectors can show if sandblasting has been done on denim, and also which kind of sand it had been used ( sand with a very high percentage of metal and low silica level, or sand with smaller proportion of metal ). This metal detector is a controller that help the governement to drive out ‘lier brands’ or other factories that use the more dangerous sand.

Some factories carried out the sandblasting in separate facilities, where workers continue the process without the risk of exposure, and also working in the night to prevent the arrive of buyer’s or controller that would close the factory for exploitation and use of toxic substances. farther, instead of using mechanical sandblasting, factories shift to the manual sandblasting if they can’t complete the order in time.

Worker’s health is not only influenced by toxic substances and machines used for sandblasting, but also from the time that worker is forced to work in factories. A worker normally work 12 hours each day, that consists of eight hours, one hour of lunch-break and other three hours overtime; But Bangladeshi’s factories it’s not the same. There the majority of workers surveyed worked 11 – 12 hours per day witthmandatory and overtime, that it’s paid only fot a half.

Although Bangladesh has a very big legislation regarding about occupational health and safety, this is always ignored and violated because they wanted only to increase the production, and they don’t care about worker’s healt ; infact most Bangladeshi companies haven’t the health insurance and this causes the desease of the most of workers who are forced to return to their home villages with the knowledge of the underlying cause of their sickness.

A lot of research shows an alarming low awareness about The effects that can have on workers the denim sandblasting. Indeed most workers who fall ill due to sandblasting are often diagnosed with other deseased like tubercolosis,asthma and other respiratory diseases that can be taken in the clothing industry. The worst thing is that the most medical pratictioners and medical teaching staff in Bangladesh don’t possess knowledge of the correaltion between denim sandblasting and siliscosis.

The RMG sector has rapidly become the backbone of Bangladesh’s economy, it produces about 80% of the country’s total export and it’s one of the most important sector that helps to support the economy. The RMG production rate is so high because has large numbers of unskilled and low cost labour; this is for the lack of other jobs and illiteracy that force people to adapt well to the worst conditions. But there are some problems in RMG sector: increasing wage pressures competitive international environment social and environmental compliance scrutiny low wages, poor social and economic standards, an overall lack of freedom of association and collective bargaining FOR WORKERS OF THIS GARMENT SECTOR.

By the expert study, it can be concluded that the manual sandblasting method is being gradually replaced by the mechanical method, in fact some factories appear to be in the process of shifting from tue use of sandblasting to other techniques like laser or hand-sanding. Obviously the denim production for major brand continues to be done with manual or mechanical sanblasting and that’s a big problem because both of them are deadly for the workers! IT IS HOPED THAT THESE MORTAL METHODS EVENTUALLY BE REPLACED BY OTHERS THAT DON’T AFFECT THE HEALTH OF WORKERS,WHILE MAINTAINING LOW COSTS.