An organic certification allows up to 5% of the formulation to be ânon organicâ materials (excluding synthetic rubber). While all field latex (including the field latex that is used to produce organic latex) uses some ammonia because itâs generally added to the collection cups in the plantation ⌠ammonia is only used in small amounts that are less than 1% and are even less for low ammoniated latex (see here) so it would be possible to produce organic Talalay latex that has âsomeâ ammonia added to it for stabilization during shipping as long as the total organic rubber content in a final product was 95% or higher and the final product still meets all the other GOLS certified organic criteria. ADMIN NOTE:Removed 404 page link | Archived Footprint: natural-rubber.com/latex.php
This Cradle to Cradle certificate is actually great news, in addition to the OekoTex 100 certificate.
As a business that specializes in âorganicâ products I have to say that organic
certificates donât always mean an awful lot as they are not legitimate safety certificates and many times do not even require lab testing for VOCâs or VVOCâs.
The Radium natural talalay definitely is a superior product and I appreciate the certificates that are backed by sound science.
MFC you are right, about why there likely will not be a GOLS certificate for natural talalay, maybe if the manufacture was done on site it would be possible, the question is whether there is a legitimate benefit.
Just for reference ⌠in one of the conversations I had with Radium in Holland I brought up the subject of whether âin theoryâ they would be able to acquire an organic certification for their 100% natural Talalay because the question often comes up. They told me there was no inherent reason why they couldnât but that it didnât make economic sense including because they would need to source their latex from an organic plantation and they would need to separate their production lines (you canât make organic certified latex in the same production facility as you make blended latex). While they wouldnât need to manufacture the latex on a production site that was near the plantation ⌠as you also mentioned the benefits (economic and otherwise) would be questionable
Now that they have the Cradle to Cradle Gold certification which in effect combines most of the benefits of both worlds there would be even less of a reason to pursue an organic certification.
Talalay Global on the other hand uses fillers in their latex so unlike Radium they wouldnât meet the 95% organic rubber criteria that is required for an organic certification even if they were sourcing their latex from an organic plantation and had separate production lines.
I really canât add to much to he previous comments from Phoenix.
I will mention that last fall I spoke with a mattress manufacturer using the Radium Talalay and they considered the (at that time) Cradle to Cradle Silver a superior certification to a potential GOLS. I also asked about the potential for a GOLS down the road, and while they mentioned it was certainly possible, they only stated that they were âin discussionsâ about it. I believe, for the reasons already mentioned in the post by Phoenix, that there would have to be quite a large demand for such a certification that would compel a latex company to dedicate an entire manufacturing section to this one form of Talalay.
The PTB/TG natural Talalay, while previously advertised as âorganic,â was not Cradle to Cradle nor GOLS certified for the reasons Phoenix mentioned. In the current PTB line their natural Talalay has been eliminated, and I donât know if TG is even producing a natural Talalay at this time. I know in my previous conversations with those at PTB it was never brough up as something that was really important to them in their marketing to pusue a Talalay that met more stringent certifications. But you never know what is going on behind the scenes and I of course donât have access to forward-looking information like that (and even if I did I ethically/legally couldnât share it).
Hi Daniel,
I get the feeling that your a little disappointed by some of the Organic certifications
In the case of Organic latex certification GOLS, (Global Organic Latex Standard) itâs the single most important certification in the latex mattress industry, as it covers organic, purity, environmental and labor parameters in one certification. The two most important aspects of GOLS are that it forbids the use of synthetic latex and it guarantees the latex to be free of diluent fillers such as chalk.
You are correct that GOLS does not test for VOCâs or VVOCâs but in the case of the organic latex sold by Natureâs Embrace the tests and certifications are done by Eco-Institut and actually have a lower TVOC threshold than Cradle to Cradle. ADMIN NOTE:Removed 404 page link | Archived Footprint: 0304.nccdn.net/1_5/000/000/134/20e/ECO-LATEx-FOAM--Full-Report-.pdf
Both GOLS and Eco test for Organic and or Natural Latex polymer content. For GOLS 95% purity is required . Eco has a variety of tests and levels of certification.
We agree that both Organic Dunlop and Radium latex are by far the finest natural bedding products on the market. However for purity it seams only GOLS and Eco-Institut test for content of at least 95% Natural/Organic latex polymer in order to give a certification.
Correct me if Iâm wrong, but the cradle to cradle gold certification does not require a content test, but only a absence of banned chemical test?
To come back to my original question, how can a customer be certain that he is buying 100% latex, if there is no independent testing or certification for content?
While Iâm not Daniel of course ⌠I can add a few comments âŚ
There are many people in the industry that I talk with that probably wouldnât agree with you on this. An organic certification has little to nothing to do with the quality or performance of a product (itâs virtually identical to the same material that doesnât have an organic certification) even though it adds to the cost of a product. It also doesnât test the final product for harmful substances or VOCâs (although of course an organic product would generally be considered as safe ⌠there is nothing to âproveâ it) so it would require a second certification (such as Eco-Institut as you mentioned) to confirm that there are no harmful substances or VOCâs in the final product. In other words there are many people in the industry that question the âvalueâ of an organic certification vs the same material that doesnât have an organic certification and in the industry as a whole I think that there are many more people that are concerned with the âsafetyâ of a mattress than whether it has an organic certification.
As a single certification the C2C gold certification tests for harmful substances and VOCâs and includes social and environmental considerations as well (similar to GOLS) for those where this is an important part of a purchase choice and the only additional benefits of the GOLS certification that I can see vs the C2C gold certification (outside of knowing that the raw field latex used to make the latex was certified organic) is that it also includes a requirement that the product contains 95% or more natural latex.
In other words ⌠both C2C and GOLS may require a second certification to satisfy some of the criteria that may be important to a customer. In the case of C2C Gold it could require a second certification that includes natural latex content and in the case of GOLS it could require a second certification that includes specific testing for harmful substances and VOCâs.
Assuming that you mean 100% natural latex (rather than 100% latex because synthetic latex is just as much âlatexâ as natural latex) ⌠the most obvious answer would be that a customer that is only willing to consider a product that contains 100% natural latex (without any synthetic latex) and requires some type of âproofâ of the natural latex content of a product (outside of a manufacturers description) would probably purchase a product that has a certification that includes the level of âproofâ that they are comfortable with.
For those consumers where 100% natural latex is a primary consideration for reasons other than safety (synthetic latex is also a very safe material and in general will pass the same âsafetyâ certifications as natural latex) ⌠then certifications such as QUL, Eco-Institut, and GOLS that confirm the natural latex content would probably be more important.
Yes I agree with you that there are many more customers that are concerned with the âsafetyâ of a mattress than whether it has an organic certification. However we need to keep in mind that the organic movement is gaining ground and more people are becoming conscious of the importance of buying pure, chemical free products and supporting fair environmental and labor practices. A growing number of consumers are now hypersensitive and require chemical free products in order to live normal lives.
On a final note, it would be a great advantage for the manufacturers of 100% natural Talalay, to get a simple certification that confirms, that their product is composed of 100% natural Talalay. Just like the Organic latex manufacturers have to prove that their product is made of organic materials.
Thank you for your all comments, I can put my question to rest
Can anyone supply us with a Material Health Certificate for the new Gold rated product? If not, can anyone just tell us the difference between the Silver and the Gold? Someone suggested in might all be in the environmental category. Is that correct?
The Cradle to Cradle Certified Product Standard, Version 3.1, is located here.
Thereâs an incredible amount of information on the Cradle to Cradle site about their testing procedures. You should have some fun pouring through that.
Ms. Heens does not work for Radium. She is a scientific project manager at EPEA Nederland. You would need to contact someone at Radium for an answer to this particular question, or perhaps a manufacturer using this foam to see when they start using it.
If you scroll back to post #16 in this topic you will see that Radium has already received the C2C Gold certification for their 100% natural talalay.
As I understand it the Material Health Certificate is included as part of the gold product certification and isnât issued separately if you have the product certification. Their scorecard is here and their gold product certificate is here. You can see the differences between the C2C Silver product certification and the Gold product certifications in section 2.4 in this document. You can also see the VOC testing limits for the Gold material health certification in section 3.9 of the same document.
This really isnât possible to answer because its not possible to know which certification a formulation that was used prior to the time a material was submitted to a certifying agency would have qualified for or which certification any potential future formulation would qualify for. The C2C certification is based on a process of continuous evaluation and improvement and the only higher certification would be a platinum but itâs not really possible to predict when or if a product will meet a higher certification until it actually happens.
Iâve emailed my contact at Radium and asked them whether there is a 2 page gold certificate that is equivalent to the silver certificate that you linked and Iâll let you know as soon as I receive a reply.
Wow. Its truly impressive how much knowledge and how many contacts you have in every aspect of the mattress industry.
If we canât get the new updated Gold MHC version so we can compare at-a-glance with ease, we just have one question that might clarify everything for us. Let me present it to you;
Please see the attached chart and specific category âFormulation Optimizedâ where we have added a green arrow, third from the bottom. The chart is from section 2.4 of the C2C pdf you provided to us.
What we donât understand is that the chart indicates thereâs a difference between Silver and Gold in this specific category (i.e. all of âXâ -assessed chemicals replaced or phased out") but according to the Silver certificate there are no âXâ materials in the Silver. The Silver just consists of âCâ and âGreyâ. How could the âXâ have been phased out if it did not exist in the Silver to begin with?
I received a reply and confirmed that there is no need for a separate 2 page certificate at the Gold level because at the Gold level there are no chemicals that are either unknown or unknown in their effects, X rated (harmful chemicals that need to be phased out), or banned chemicals in the formulation. The Gold level tests for 100% of the chemicals in the formulation rather than the 95% at the Silver level so it isnât necessary.
So just to clarify;
They are testing 100% of the product instead of 95% (or 99.4%) so nothing is unknown any longer.
The rest of the Silver cert would remain the same? No difference in âchemical substancesâ (23) and âProduct Optimizationâ would be unchanged in the Yellow status, but Grey status (unknown chemicals) is eliminated? Do we have it right?
The Gold certification requires that every chemical is rated either A or B or C so there are no longer any chemicals that are on the banned list, or are rated X (regardless of whether they were on the banned list) or any chemicals that are unknown (grey) either in terms of what they are or in terms of their effects.
The previous silver certification included 1 unknown (grey) chemical and none that were on the banned list or were rated as an X but the single âunknownâ would have been enough to prevent the Gold certification. They may have made additional changes to the formulation since their Silver certification was upgraded to Gold as well which of course would be proprietary to anyone except Radium and EPEA (the certifying agency) because latex manufacturers donât disclose their exact formulation to the public.
Based on my understanding and on the C2C guidelines, two of the three check boxes you mentioned would now be checked and the last one for process chemicals would be part of the Platinum certification. At the current time they are the only latex manufacturer to have reformulated and/or confirmed that their formulation even meets the Gold certification (in addition to the other requirements for the Gold certification) which is an accomplishment that took some time and effort on the part of Radium because the Gold certification is very stringent.
I am satisfied with the extensive information that they have already provided and I personally have no doubts or questions about whether there are any âunsafeâ materials or chemicals in their Talalay and that they are all in the A, B, or C. category (which has already been mentioned as a requirement for the Gold certification) so knowing the specific number of chemicals in their formulation would have no meaning to me and would have no bearing on the safety of their latex.
If you do wish to know the number of chemicals in their formulation for some reason then you can certainly contact them at their contact page here and they would provide you with any information that they are willing to disclose to consumers although I donât see what the point of knowing the specific number of chemicals would be.
