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 this 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.