Why does dyeing clothes have a significant environmental impact?

In a small corner of rural Taiwan, among dyeing mills and other small factories, startup Alchemie Technology is in the final stage of rolling out a project it claims will turn the global clothing industry upside down and reduce its carbon footprint.

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

“Traditionally in fabric dyeing, the fabric is soaked in water at 135 degrees Celsius for up to four hours or so — gallons and tons of water.” For example, to dye one ton of polyester, you generate 30 tons of wastewater. “Toxic,” Alchemie founder Dr. Alan Hood tells me.

“This is the same process that was developed 175 years ago in northwest England, in Lancashire cotton mills and Yorkshire cotton mills, and we exported it,” he points out, first to the United States and then to mills in Asia. .

The clothing industry uses an estimated five trillion liters of water every year to dye fabrics. According to the World Resources Institutea US-based non-profit research center.

The industry, in turn, is responsible for 20% of the world’s industrial water pollution, while also consuming vital resources such as groundwater in some countries. It also releases a huge carbon footprint from start to finish – or about 10% of annual global emissions, According to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Alchemie says its technology could help solve this problem.

Its machine, called Endeavour, can press-dye, dry and stabilize fabrics in a dramatically shorter, water-saving process.

Endeavor uses the same principle as inkjet printing to quickly and accurately release dye onto and through fabric, according to the company. The machine’s 2,800 dispensers release approximately 1.2 billion drops per linear meter of fabric.

“Effectively what we’re doing is recording and placing a droplet, a very small droplet, precisely and precisely onto the fabric. We can turn those droplets on and off, just like a light switch,” says Dr. Hood.

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

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

“The UK is really strong at R&D projects, and they’re really strong at inventing new things, but certainly if you want to go into commercialization, you need to go into real factories,” says Ryan Chen, the new head of R&D. Operations at Alchemie, which has a background in textile manufacturing in Taiwan.

Alchemie isn’t the only company trying to make a nearly waterless dyeing process.

There’s China-based textile company NTX, which has developed a non-thermal dyeing process that can reduce water use by 90% and dye by 40%, according to its website, and Swedish startup Imogo, which also uses a “digital ‘spray application'” with similar environmental benefits. .

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

Kirsi Niinimaki, a design professor who researches the future of textiles at Finland’s Aalto University, says the solutions offered by these companies look “very promising” — although she adds that she would like to see more specific information on issues such as the installation and installation process. Long-term studies on fabric durability.

But although it is still early days, Ms Niinimaki says companies like Alchemie can bring real change to the industry.

“All of these kinds of new technologies, I think, are improvements. If you’re able to use less water, for example, that of course means less energy, and probably less chemicals – that of course is a huge improvement.”

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

Alchemy service manager Matthew Avis, who helped rebuild Endeavor at its new factory site, discovered that the machine needed to operate in an air-conditioned environment – ​​an important lesson given the size of the garment industry in South Asia.

The company also has some big goals for 2025. After testing it with polyester in Taiwan, Alchemie is heading to South Asia and Portugal to test its devices and also try them on cotton.

They will also have to figure out how to scale Project Endeavor.

Major fashion companies such as Inditex, which owns Zara, work with thousands of factories. Its suppliers would need hundreds of businesses working together to meet its demand for fabric dyeing.

And this is just one company – and there will be many, many more in need.