Recycled Verification Framework
An international product standard administered by Textile Exchange establishes third-party certification requirements for recycled content, chain of custody, chemical management and environmental practices under GRS Version 4.0. The standard applies to materials containing at least twenty percent verified recycled content, though fifty percent is required for consumer-facing on-product logo labelling. Verification tracks materials along intermediate processing steps from initial recycling collectors to garment manufacturing.
Chain Custody Protocol
Supply chain tracing relies upon transaction certificates issued by accredited certification bodies for every commercial transfer of certified goods. Input processors must verify that incoming reclaimed raw materials satisfy legal definitions of pre-consumer or post-consumer waste. Physical reconciliation audits compare total raw material mass entering the processing facility against outgoing product yields, calculating manufacturing loss percentages to prevent uncertified material substitution.
Chemical Restriction Criterion
Processing units operating under the certification must operate an active chemical management system that tracks all input chemical commercial names, hazard classifications and safety data sheets. Chemical formulations must undergo toxicological screening against the standard’s manufacturing restricted substances list, excluding alkylphenol ethoxylates, halogenated flame retardants and heavy metals. Wastewater effluent from wet processing facilities must comply with discharge velocity, temperature, pH, biological oxygen demand and chemical oxygen demand thresholds prior to environmental discharge.
Commercial Compliance Boundary
Certification boundaries terminate once physical processing stops and ownership passes to retailers without active manufacturing operations. A company that purchases certified yarn and weaves unfinished grey fabric without an updated facility scope certificate breaks the documentation chain, invalidating subsequent transaction certificates for that production lot.
