will they ever learn

WILL THEY EVER LEARN

Today I received a solicitation from a company in China that claims to make sleeping bags; the no sleep sleeping bag variety.

Over the years I have received numerous solicitations of this for these bags over the years. Today I chose to see what they are offering, something I have not done in the past. I was especially interested in learning what materials they use. I found out they are using for both the shell material as well as the lining material made from “polyester fiber.”

I strongly suspect that had I spent the time viewing the other solicitors web site I would have found that all of the use “polyester fiber” materials.

The companies located in the USA that buy no sleep sleeping bags from Chinese factories want cheap products. Polyester fabrics are much less expensive (cheaper) than nylon fabrics.

The Chinese are accommodating their customers without concern if the bags actually perform at the temperature rating the tag states but more importantly, they the Chinese do not care to know that the polyester fabrics are highly flammable. Of course, I have been told the sleeping bags sold at REI, as well as every other retailer in the country or world for that matter that are made with materials that are flame retardant treated as well. [I have heard for years from mothers looking for sleeping bags that are not flame retardant treated and literally everyone of them has told me they call REI specifically and are told theirs are flame retardant treated.]

I reported several years ago that REI did a study with Duke University about tents made with flame retardant materials and they found the flame retardant chemical comes of on your hands when you erect the tent. Therefore, you should wear gloves when putting up the tent. [this is stated on the REI wed site]. They further found out the flame retardant chemical off gases so when you are in the tent you breath in the fumes, wonderful.

Now think about getting into a sleeping bag and breathing in these fumes each day you use the bag. all of the cheap bags available at all of the retailer’s nationwide regardless of brand name or color are made with the same fabrics. It is the cheap bags that are bought for children to use in sleep overs.

USA based marketing companies who go to China to get products made in this case their no sleep sleeping bags are not concerned about their customers. They do not know or if they do the long term affects of breathing in chemicals. Children are exposed to these chemicals and when they become teenagers or young adults, they show signs of the affects of these chemicals; they become chemically sensitive and it is with them for life. I know of one company in the USA that gets their slumber bag shells from China and puts the polyester fiber in them here in the USA. These shells are made from polyester fiber and who knows if they are flame retardant treated, they sell in stores like Walmart for $20.00 or less.

If one of these bags burns the fumes might kill you first. But the bags can burn in minutes and if you are in a tent as the army learned years ago chances of getting out of the tent are slim. The army lost two solders whose bags started to burn and then their tent started burning, there were fire extinguishers just minutes away but it was useless.

I find it appalling to learn that so many large companies are quick to save the planet but could care less about their customers. Today almost all of the giants of the industry like Nike have taken back programs where they give one a few pennies when product is returned which you can apply to a new purchase. What if they made or had made for them a high quality product that would last?

In that case the land fills wouldn’t be filling with their trash products.

Almost daily I read in the online publications serving the “outdoor industry” of new developments of materials and products [garments] that are nonsensible. It becomes new language applied to the same fabrics that have been with us for years or centuries, but they do more and better things. I find their shenanigans a joke.

I use the same quality nylon inside and outside of my sleeping bags that I have used for years as far back as my Olam days. The insulation also has not changed in all this time. My sleeping bags have gotten better over the course of time primarily because the Climashield has been improved.

But I digress, the people who work in the outdoor industry marketers and retailers have not learned anything over the past 50 years because their main goal is to make as much money as possible regardless of the poor quality of the products they put on their shelves.

Will they ever learn, doubtful since in 50 years they haven’t learned anything?