Clothing
dyes have a huge impact on the environment, especially around the
factories that produce clothing. They discharge a toxin called
nonylphenol, which is deadly to aquatic life. However, nonylphenol
doesn’t just affect the water. It stays in clothing until it is
washed multiple times. While the EU has banned imports containing
clothing with nonylphenol, the US has not.
Dyeing
clothes also uses enormous amounts of fresh water, more than half a
trillion gallons of water all together. The dye water is discharged
(often untreated) into nearby rivers, which feeds into the sea,
eventually making its way worldwide.
An
example of clothing dye affecting the environment is the Citarum
River, the largest and longest river in West Java, Indonesia. It is
considered one of the most polluted rivers in the world, partially
due to the textile factories in Indonesia. When the textile boom
began in Indonesia, there was not much monitoring of its
infrastructure, and so clothing manufacturers would just dump their
chemicals into the river. This turned Citarum into nothing but an
open sewer containing lead, mercury, arsenic, and many other toxic
chemicals. This affected aquatic life and human life.
There
is a new type of waterless dye, but it has not been deployed at most
manufacturing facilities. Facilities may also be reluctant to adopt
it because it is expensive to install and only works on certain
fabrics.
Sources:
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