teaandpies wrote:Trying to do a bit of research on this traceable down.
Patagonia say on their website that they are the only use traceable down and they started their process of getting only traceable down in their products back in 2007.
After the down is collected from geese that have been killed for their meat, we follow it through washing, sorting and processing facilities to ensure proper traceability and segregation from untraceable down.
Source 'Patagonia Website'.
The above seems to be the key bit of information here. Although Mountain Equipment source from decent suppliers I don't think they can assure the buyer that there has not been any contamination with unethically sourced down at some processing stages, cleaning & treating for example.
It all very interesting, I'm actually going to contact Patagonia to find out more.
Have you had a look at
http://www.thedowncodex.co.uk/Mountain Equipment work with this organisation
http://www.idfl.com/about/.
The audit report I have for my sleeping bag shows the IDFL on behalf of ME carried out inspections of the farms where birds are reared, slaughterhouses and the down processing facility used. I'd never actually read it fully until now but it goes into detail regarding age of birds used, conditions the birds are kept in, and feather processing, down to the specifics of naming the chemicals used.
Another couple of organisations involved you may want to check out are
http://www.edfa.eu/ and
www.cfdia.comIncidentally, the last two down garments I've bought have been Patagonia (Though not at Patagonia prices I might add). I do like their "Repair, reuse and recycle" ethos. I visited the Patagonia store in Portland, Oregon recently and they have a policy whereby you can take old Patagonia gear and exchange it for vouchers. Your old gear is repaired if necessary and sold on as "worn wear". 90% of the stuff I saw in that section was in mint condition. I bought myself a down sweater vest for $40(~£32)! Had to resist buying more due to lack of suitcase space.