The Future of Fashion & Sustainability | 6 A Factory of Living Colors
The processes that provide our clothes with vibrancy and life are among the leading contributors to global water pollution.
The sources of this pollution are non-biodegradable and petroleum-based synthetic dyes, which are also the most widely used in the industry. However, increasing coverage and research on synthetic dyes shines a light on their harmful properties. Despite public knowledge and press attention, brands continue to use synthetic dyes because of their low cost, scalability, and performance.[i] The use of synthetic dyes is a key challenge for the sustainable fashion movement. However, similar to other innovations in sustainable fashion, biology may hold the key to safer and cleaner dying practices.
Nearly 20% of global water pollution is linked to the release of wastewater from toxic and synthetic dye into lakes and rivers, polluting waterways that provide essential drinking water.[ii] The problem stems from the lack of international dye and wastewater management regulations. For example, “wastewater is commonly dumped directly into rivers and streams” in Bangladesh, one of the global leaders in textile production, largely due to weak regulation and enforcement.[iii] The toxic wastewater released into waterways inherently damages aquatic biodiversity. The buildup of chemicals can prevent light from penetrating the water’s surface, reducing plants’ ability to photosynthesize, as a result reducing the oxygen levels in the water.[iv] The textile dyes are also toxic and carcinogenic, with the ability to cross entire food chains.[v] Working with synthetic dyes and chemical finishing practices also poses a health risk for workers that may not have adequate access to protective clothing. Though wastewater regulation increases globally, ridding hazardous chemicals from apparel production remains a challenge as annual apparel production is expected to rise.[vi]
There is no one size fits all approach that will lessen brands’ reliance on synthetic dyes, but there are initiatives to shift towards cleaner dyeing practices. Natural dyes are making a comeback as small labels make a case for sustainable alternatives. Natural dyes are more environmentally friendly, as most are extracted from living organisms, but they can be difficult to source and “still require heavy metals to fix the color.”[vii] However, it is unlikely to scale the use of natural dyes to meet the demand of an increasing number of apparel produced annually. Natural dyes are not as cheap or easy to procure and may only adhere well to natural fibers. Talking to Vogue India, Mexican textile artist Porfirio Gutiérrez questions if natural dyes are sustainably scalable, and he instead believes they may be better for “personal clothing and expression” rather than mass commercialization; something that can exist on a small scale.[viii] However, despite the challenges, small labels like Olderbrother and Hara are shifting to the use of natural dyes, while even some larger companies are using natural dyes.[ix] In particular, Levi’s and Converse are also integrating natural plant-based colors into some of their inventories.[x]
Perhaps of greater note and potential to limit the fashion industry’s reliance on synthetic dyes has been the use of bacteria. The work of British and French startups, Colorifix and PILI, highlights how minuscule microbes can drive progress in one of the biggest polluting sectors of fashion. Like many new innovations across the fashion industry, biology and nature play a key role in defining sustainable fashion.
[Image: Colorifix + Pangaia]
Colorifix finds colors created by organisms in nature, and via online DNA sequencing, they “pinpoint the exact genes that lead to the production of the pigment” and translate that DNA code into the bacteria.[xi] The resulting bacteria can then produce that specific pigment as it is produced in nature. This color is grown by fermentation, as the microorganisms grow on renewable feedstocks such as sugar, yeast, and plant byproducts.[xii] As the bacteria divide, the amount of colorful dye liquor grows. When this dye liquor is placed into standard dye machines along with the fabric, the result is a living, breathing, metaphorically speaking, piece of apparel that has none of the harsh chemicals, heavy metals, or salts that pollute waterways due to conventional dyeing practices. A few months ago, Colorifix collaborated with sustainable fashion brand Pangaia to launch a line of casual wear with Colorifix’s proprietary bacteria-based dye. It’s another great example of how biofabrication continues to change the fashion industry.
Colorifix’s dyeing technology is impactful because when compared to the conventional dyeing step for cotton,
Colorifix’s technology can cut “water consumption by at least 49 percent, save electrical energy consumption by 35 percent, and cut CO2 emissions by 31 percent.”[xiii]
According to Colorifix, their dyeing process requires no additional fixing stage, as the micro-organisms can more efficiently bind with the fabrics.[xiv] Their dyeing process can help the fashion industry lower its environmental impact significantly. The challenge is in scaling the technology to bring this dyeing process into the global fashion supply chain. Former Stella McCartney Worldwide Sustainability & Innovation Director Claire Bergkamp addressed this challenge at the 2019 SynbiTECH international forum. She detailed the need to work collaboratively with dyeing mills and other manufacturers to implement technology that would allow them to even utilize Colorifix’s bacterial dye.[xv]
French startup PILI began as a small project to develop a semi-living pen filled with dye-producing bacteria, but the founders fully shifted to developing a scalable bacteria-based dye technology with the company’s founding in 2015. Now the company is engineering enzymes, proteins that act as biological catalysts for chemical reactions, to produce dyes via bacteria.[xvi] After integrating the genes for enzymes into bacteria, the company grows bacteria in “water-based bioreactors, using sugar as their main food source.”[xvii] Much like beer, they use fermentation tanks to grow the microbes. They finish off with a filtration process that separates the pigments from the microbes. PILI has a much cleaner production process than synthetic dyes because their bacteria-based dyes use “no petrol, no chemicals, and grow in 5 times less water at room temperature.”[xviii] The company’s big selling point is that its products “are compatible with current dye infrastructure and processes” found in the supply chain.[xix] PILI is currently working to scale up production and reduce the cost of production.
What’s certain is that the dyeing processes that are widely utilized today are having an adverse impact on the environment. Despite increasing regulation around wastewater management from textile production, the reality is, the practice of dumping toxic dye-filled water into fresh waterways persists. Encouraging, however, is the creation of biofabricated dyes developed from cleaner processes that can potentially lessen the environmental impact of dyes. No new technology is without its challenge, but there is hope that these innovations prompt change across the fashion supply chain with designers, dyeing & finishing factories, fabric suppliers and more collaborating to implement these sustainable solutions.
*To learn more about the harms synthetic dyes pose, see the links cited and read “Effects of textile dyes on health and the environment and bioremediation potential of living organisms” found in Biotechnology Research and Innovation, vol 3, issue 2.
[i] https://colorifix.com/colorifix-solutions/
[ii] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/fashion-industry-carbon-unsustainable-environment-pollution/
[iii] https://www.cnn.com/style/article/dyeing-pollution-fashion-intl-hnk-dst-sept/index.html
[iv] https://www.cnn.com/style/article/dyeing-pollution-fashion-intl-hnk-dst-sept/index.html#:~:text=Cost%20of%20color,involved%20in%20making%20our%20clothes
[v] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452072119300413
[vi] https://www.cnn.com/style/article/dyeing-pollution-fashion-intl-hnk-dst-sept/index.html
[vii] https://www.vogue.in/fashion/content/sustainable-fashion-fabric-dye-pollution-ways-to-counted
[viii] https://www.vogue.in/fashion/content/sustainable-fashion-fabric-dye-pollution-ways-to-counted
[ix] https://www.ft.com/content/e60780cc-71df-430f-ac34-b3d2aa240d45
[x] https://www.ft.com/content/e60780cc-71df-430f-ac34-b3d2aa240d45
[xi] https://colorifix.com/colorifix-solutions/
[xii] https://colorifix.com/colorifix-solutions/
[xiii] https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/pangaia-launches-apparel-using-biology-based-dyes/2021120159744
[xiv] https://colorifix.com/colorifix-solutions/
[xv] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-UPKICnZKk
[xvi] https://www.pili.bio/9/technology
[xvii] https://www.pili.bio/9/technology
[xviii] https://www.pili.bio/8/qa
[xix] https://www.pili.bio/9/technology