Why dyeing clothes has a big impact on the environment

In a small corner of rural Taiwan, among other dye houses and small factories, startup Alchemie Technology is in the final stages of launching a project it says will improve the global clothing industry and reduce its carbon footprint.

A UK-based startup has targeted one of the dirtiest parts of the clothing industry – dyeing fabric – with the world’s first digital dyeing process.

“Traditionally when you dye fabric, you soak the fabric in water that reaches 135 degrees celsius for up to four hours or more – liters and tons of water. For example, to dye one tonne of polyester, you produce 30 tonnes of toxic waste water,” Alchemie founder Dr Alan Hudd tells me.

“That’s the same process that was developed 175 years ago in the northwest of England, in Lancashire cotton mills and Yorkshire cotton mills, and we exported it,” he said, first to the US and then to Asian factories. .

The clothing industry uses an estimated five billion liters of water each year just to dye the fabric, according to the World Resources Institutea non-profit research institute based in the US.

The industry, on the other hand, is responsible for 20% of the world’s industrial water pollution, and also uses important resources such as groundwater in other countries. It also emits a huge carbon footprint from start to finish – or about 10% of the world’s annual emissions, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Alchemie says its technology can help solve that problem.

Called Endeavor, its machine can compress fabric dyeing, drying, and mending into a much shorter and water-efficient process.

Endeavor uses the same principle as inkjet printing to quickly and accurately transfer dye to fabric, according to the company. 2,800 machine operators burn approximately 1.2 billion drops per meter of fabric.

“What we’re doing successfully is registering and placing a droplet, a very small droplet precisely and precisely on the fabric. And we can turn these droplets on and off, like a light switch,” said Dr Hudd.

Alchemie claims great savings with this process: reducing water consumption by 95%, energy consumption up to 85%, and working three to five times faster than traditional processes.

Originally developed in Cambridge, the company is now in Taiwan to see how Endeavor works in a real-world environment.

“The UK is really strong in R&D, really strong in innovation, but of course if you want to move to commercial you need to go to real factories,” said Ryan Chen, new chief operating officer at Alchemie, which has a history of manufacturing textiles in Taiwan.

Alchemie is not the only company experimenting with the waterless dyeing process.

There is the Chinese textile company NTX, which has developed a heatless dyeing process that can reduce water consumption by 90% and dye by 40%, according to their website, and Swedish startup Imogo, which also uses “digital. spray application” for the same natural benefits.

NTX and Imogo did not respond to a BBC interview request.

Kirsi Niinimäki, a professor of architecture who researches the future of textiles at Finland’s Aalto University, says the solutions these companies are coming up with look “very promising” – although she adds that she would like to see specific details about issues such as the repair and maintenance process. long-term studies on fabric durability.

But while it’s still early days, Ms Niinimäki says companies like Alchemie can bring real change to the industry.

“All these kinds of new technologies, I think they’re advances. If you can use less water, for example, that means less energy, and maybe less chemicals – so that’s a big improvement.”

Back in Taiwan, there are still intricacies to work out – such as how to operate the Endeavor machine in a hotter and more humid climate than the UK.

Alchemie’s service manager, Matthew Avis, who helped rebuild the Endeavor at its new factory location, found that the machine needed to operate in an air-conditioned environment – an important lesson given how much garment production takes place in south Asia.

The company also has big goals for 2025. After its tests with polyester in Taiwan, Alchemie headed closer to South Asia and Portugal to test their machines and also try cotton.

They will also have to find a way to grow Endeavour.

Large fashion companies such as Inditex, the owner of Zara, work with thousands of factories. Its suppliers will need hundreds of Endeavors working together to meet their demand for fabric dyeing.

And that’s just one company – there will be many, many more that need it.