Dyeing
Without Causing Our Environment to Die
The
dyeing of clothing is a MAJOR part of the apparel industry. The big question
though is, can we dye our clothing without harming the environment…is this
possible? With enough effort and dedication I believe it is possible to make
the dyeing of products non-harmful to the environment and the workers, but also
make the whole product produced either a biological nutrient or a technical
nutrient. Not only could doing this help the environment but it could also save
companies millions of dollars in the long run.
Most
consumers have absolutely no idea what harmful chemicals are in the dyeing
solutions that make our clothing all the colors that we have grown to love.
Some of these harmful chemical have been prohibited from use and others only
have certain regulations against them but are not prohibited from use. Some of
these harmful chemicals used in disperse dyes that are under regulations
according to ‘AAFA Restricted Substance List’ are Blue 1, Blue 35, Blue 106,
Blue 124, Orange 3, Orange 37/59/76, Red 1, and Yellow 3; all of which are
restricted because of their allergenic potential. Some of the harmful chemicals
used in Azo dyes that are prohibited according to ‘Global Organic Textile
Standard’ are Chloroaniline, Amino-4-nitrotoluene, Dimethyl-4, and Oxydianiline
just to name a few out of the 27 they have listed. Harmful chemicals that are
not on either of these lists that was mentioned numerous times in ‘Cradle to
Cradle’ due to its effect on the environment and the people working around it is
Carcinogens. Carcinogens are substances that are directly involved in causing
cancer. It is scary to think that industries are willingly letting their employees
work in environments filled with these chemicals leaving them with only a thin
face mask to protect themselves as it enters into the outside environment.
Although
it is hard to bring this action, it is possible to make the apparel industry much
safer for the environment and its workers. In ‘cradle to cradle’ it is stated
that “biological nutrients are useful to the biosphere, while technical
nutrients are useful for the technosphere, the systems of industrial processes”.
To help bring this to a reality we must first get rid of the known
environmentally harmful chemicals we use in the dyeing process. To replaces
these harmful chemicals there needs to be a list made of all the chemicals that
can be used as either biological nutrient or technological nutrients. The new must
put this list into action! Making sure that these and only these chemicals are
used, here’s the catch though….the biological nutrients and the technological
nutrients must be kept separate so they can be later recycled and reused for
other products thus saving money. Last we must re-design the system that was
previously used. Although this is very time consuming and tedious work, it will
save money and our environment in the long way. I think we can afford to spend
a little extra time on how we produce thing to save our environment, don’t you!
This is one of my favorite topics, I feel that it is a good place for designers to start when making the move towards being sustainable. I was not aware of how many chemicals used in dyes were so harmful that they became restricted. Do you think that even the chemicals that are not restricted should still be used? Just because they are not harmful enough to be on the list they may still be hurting our environment.
ReplyDeleteI think all chemicals have the potential to be harmful in some way or another. In the article 'cradle to cradle' they told a story about how they designed upholstery that was completely non-harmful to the environment and also biological nutrients. So only using chemicals that aren't harmful is possible it's just a matter of if the company want to spend the time and money to find the alternatives.
DeleteDo y'all ever wonder how they did it before chemicals? If we learned from the past and improved in the techniques ,without the harmful chemicals, to using natural dyes and applied it to the apparel industry, that is. I've never paid much attention to what types of dyes we use until this week. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
ReplyDeleteThese chemicals are even available in stores as the dye packets you can buy and use at home such as with tie dye. I took Heritage of Dress last semester, It didn't cover this topic specifically but it did bring up that the Mayans would use the anil plant to get indigo dyes, they would crush cochineal bugs to get red dyes, and used fluid from the gland of a mollusk to bleach cotton. I found this very interesting. I have also heard about making natural dyes from many plants.
DeleteGood point! I remember learning about that in class,they would use plants or bugs to get their dye. Surely there are more efficient ways to dye products.
DeleteI bet that if we used natural techniques to dye cloth we would come up with unique colors that could not be duplicated! This could be a great seller because most customers like knowing that they have a one of a kind product.
DeleteI looked into some natural dyes used and found Natural Indigo has been around for so long. You might find this website interesting.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-fashion/natural-indigo-jeans.html
Thanks for sharing that article! I wonder though if natural indigo was so popular..why change and start using chemical dyeing?? Levi's is a HUGE company, heck if it was good enough for them to use then it should bee good enough for other brands.
DeleteYEAH! But I don't think we should just limit this to the apparel industry. Interior industries would benefit from it as well! I'm not sure the exact numbers, but there are so many soft surfaces in a home. Carpets, Furniture, Curtains, even Wall Paper.
DeleteOh for sure! Interior couldn't benefit from it just as much as apparel can.
DeleteThis is such an interesting topic because most of what makes the apparel industry is color! Without color, seasons would have no meaning and clothing would be boring. As I was reading your blog post I realized that the name of chemicals in dye are like a foreign language to me. This made me wonder of how many consumer are informed and knowledgeable about this problem. My guess is that not so many, in fact such a small amount that we could probably list harmful chemicals in the content tag of a garment and consumers would have no clue of what it is. I think that unless we do our own research, companies have us blinded from so many harmful practices!
ReplyDeleteThe brand Jens Pirate Booty has every piece of gauze in the collection hand dyed,using all natural dyes, in clay pots over wood burning stoves. Then hung to dry on a line, in the Mexican sunlight. This special process helps keep every piece unique in its own way. Sounds environmentally friendly to me! But is it really? I wonder what really goes down behind the scenes.
I agree! I think most people are completely clueless about what harmful chemicals are used to make all those beautiful colors we all love so much. If you think about it, it's almost the same with food. They put all the ingredients on the labels but you have no idea what the chemicals actually are that they are listing,only thing you recognize is acid. That brand Pirate Booty sounds like it would be worth looking into!
DeleteYes, it is scary! And sometimes with food there is more than one name for a single chemical, I wonder if it is the same case with dye.
DeleteI would imagine it would be. Just like each manufacture has their own name for synthetic fibers to be able to tell their polyester from another manufacturers polyester.
DeleteWhat are like the label laws that go with reused fibers?
DeleteI appreciate that you've stated what needs to be done in such a straight forward and simplistic way. This should create easy understanding for consumers and corporations when it comes to explaining what needs to be changed in the apparel industry to provide for sustainability. Though, this alone won't produce sustainability, it's an enormous step in the right direction, and along with other alterations sustainability is possible!
ReplyDelete