Green Cotton

By Brit

I’ve been reading volumes of information about dyes, synthetic and natural, in the last few weeks and I’m horrified at the pollution and devastating health issues caused by several popular synthetic dyes. I am also saddened to learn of limitations on environmentally friendly natural dyes. It’s enough to make a girl contemplate wearing only undyed fabrics from now on. If only that didn’t mean beige.

I have light brown hair, and skin the color of milk that I gave up trying to tan long ago. And while I love Lily Cole, Keira Knightly and Dita Von Teese for being living proof of the ability to look gorgeous and pale, a wardrobe that’s almost the same color as my skin is going to make me look like a filing cabinet from The Office rather than Scarlett Johansen.

So let’s leave the all-beige outfits to Calvin Klein devotees and Dunder Mifflin Paper Company employees, and consider our colorful options. Thankfully, many designers are using natural dyes in an environmentally friendly manner, and synthetic dyes, while still being far from an ecological alternative, are becoming somewhat greener.

Synthetic dyes have two main areas of concern.

• Many synthetic dyes are highly toxic to dye workers, and may cause adverse health effects to those who wear dyed clothes.
• Dye factories are very polluting. Dying involves vast quantities of water, and dyeing processes usually waste a large proportion of the dye. The water containing the waste dye – dye effluent – is highly problematic. Dye can be chemically removed from the effluent, cleaning to the water to a government-approved standard, and the factory then dumps the water into a river. But quantities of dye still enter the waterways. And there is still the problem of disposing of the sludge of waste dye removed from the water. Research to treat dye effluent with fungi, bacteria, and other organic methods is in it’s infancy, but may eventually help to deal with the waste dye pollution problem.

Here are some ways to buy clothes dyed with greener, less polluting, synthetic dyes.

• Buy European. Europe has banned a number of known carcinogenic azo dyes. Clothing manufactured or sold in Europe can’t be dyed with any of those dyes.   British boutiques like Fashion-Conscience, Equa, and Adili shine with gorgeous and ethical pieces. If only the exchange rate didn’t make me weep! I’ve been resisting this season’s maxi dresses, on the basis that I would look like a walking tent, but I admit defeat in the face of this white maxi with a wood bead neckline from Adili. Trapeze dresses, wide leg jeans and more high fashion looks abound at Fashion-Conscience: forget beige with this intense azure blue embroidered shirt.  As well as women’s clothes, Equa sells darling baby gear such as this raspberry colored dress with animal appliqués.

• Avoid dark colors. The most harmful dyes are often the darker colors. Black wool dye often requires a toxic chromium mordant. The most inexpensive dark blue, brown and black cotton dyes are usually sulfur dyes, which have corrosive, highly toxic sulfur compounds as by-products. Cheap, dark colored cotton is bad.

• Avoid Azo Dyes. A large number of azo dyes are carcinogens, or are formulated from carcinogenic chemicals. Scientific consensus seems to be that the final dye product is safe to wear, but there have been incidences of a “safe” dye reverting back to a carcinogen in the body. Imagine that a baby chewing on her bib or sleeve will be ingesting dye.

• Low Impact, Fiber Reactive Dyes are those which bond very tightly to the fabric, with a high take-up rate of dye by the cloth. In this process, more dye binds to the fabric, less is wasted in the factory dye bath, so there’s less waste dye to end up in a river. Still synthetic, still petro-chemical based, but their improved permanence – the dye actually becomes part of the fiber – means that your baby can chew on a Zee Spot organic, low impact dye baby onesie more safely.

Currently, there are no true environmentally friendly synthetic dyes available, and natural dyes, used considerately, are the only true green option to dye clothing.

Natural dyes have limitations, especially that only so much can be manufactured before the scale of production begins to adversely effect the environment. The solution has to involve genuine environmentally friendly synthetic dyes. Supporting designers who use low-impact dyes and non-azo dyes will send a message to chemical companies that yes, we do want, and yes, we will buy eco-friendly dyes, so please keep researching and working to make your products cleaner, less polluting, and less toxic.

Photosource top: The Synthetic Dye Collection by Rose Madder www.micro.magnet.fsu.edu/micro/gallery/dyes/dye3.jpg