School uniforms fail to pass quality test
Nearly half of school uniforms in Guangdong province have failed spot checks on manufacturing quality, authorities said yesterday.
The Guangdong Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau recently inspected 23 batches of uniforms made in Guangzhou, Foshan and Zhongshan and found 47.8 per cent of the samples contained too little cotton and too much man-made fibre, such as polyester, which could cause skin problems for some people because the garments did not breathe as well as cotton.
Officials in Haizhu district have also inspected more than 3,000 small clothing factories in the past week, closing 375 illegal premises and ordering another 2,000 to improve their production environment or move.
Guangdong launched a four-month campaign to step up controls on production quality and food safety last week in the wake of international criticism of the mainland's poor record on quality control of exports.
A spokeswoman for the bureau said staff were exhausted by the crackdown, with even office staff pressed into inspection service.
