AMSTERDAM - Greenpeace has called on outdoor clothing brands to set short-term deadlines for phasing out the use of all poly-fluorinated chemicals (PFCs) in production processes in the wake of new research in which it claims to have found traces of PFCs in snow samples taken from remote mountain ranges and lakes in ten countries across three continents. The NGO analysed snow and water samples in Chile, China, Italy, three Nordic countries, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland and Turkey in order to highlight how the chemicals used to give outdoor clothing its water repellent and other properties leave an "indellable footprint" on the outdoor environment.