Sustainability this week: Biotech colors – the future replacement of toxic textile dyes and other updates!

The fashion industry uses around 93 billion cubic meters (21 trillion gallons) of water annually, enough to fill 37 million Olympic swimming pools, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Along with finishing, dyeing is the most polluting and energy-intensive process in making clothes. Not all chemicals and solvents used are hazardous, though the World Bank has identified 72 toxic ones that stem solely from textile dyeing. Once in waterways, they accumulate to the point where light is prevented from penetrating the surface, reducing plants’ ability to photosynthesize, lowering oxygen levels in the water, and killing aquatic plants and animals. SO? Where is the solution? The answer is “biotechnology.” Natural colors and dyes constitute a significant and expanding market, especially given heightened awareness and consumer concerns about the harmful effects of conventional manufacturing processes.

This week, Biotech startup Octarine Bio and cell programming platform Ginkgo Bioworks have agreed to work together to produce natural dyes for the textile industry. The partnership will initially focus on engineering a strain for producing violacein, a naturally-occurring deep purple pigment, and its derivatives – green, blue, and purple pigments. Bacterial violacein is commonly used to dye jacquard rayon, pure rayon, and silk, but it is not easy to extract and purify. This color also has potent antibiotic & bioactive properties, such as anti-microbial, antioxidant, and UV protective – highlighting its potential use in wound care.

Further this week, Kyocera Corporation announced FOREARTH, a new inkjet textile printer that aims to eliminate virtually all water usage from fabric printing. We expect this printer to contribute to eliminating printing-related water pollution, which has long been an issue in the textile and apparel industries. In general, textile printing uses dye ink and requires a large amount of water for the pre and post-treatment processes, such as steaming and washing. FOR EARTH is an All-in-One printing system that uses new proprietary pigment ink, pre-treatment liquid, and finishing agent, which are constantly discharged in the same sequence from the inkjet head. This system eliminates the pre-and post-processes required of conventional dye printing and reduces the water consumption of textile printing by 99%. Also, this new printing solution contributes to reducing energy consumption and CO₂ emissions because it does not need large-scale equipment used for the pre and post-treatment processes of textile printing.

Furthermore this week, The Lenzing Group, a world-leading provider of specialty fibers for the textile and nonwoven industries, has taken another big step towards achieving a circular future in collaboration with several partners. Austrian companies and not-for-profit organizations, including Lenzing’s logistics and sorting partner ARA (Altstoff Recycling Austria AG), the textile service provider Salesianer Miettex and Caritas, as well as the Swedish pulp producer Södra, have joined forces to collect used household and clothing textiles for reprocessing to produce pulp and, ultimately, new lyocell and viscose fibers. In this pilot project, used textiles collected by Salesianer Miettex that are unsuitable for reuse will be passed on to ARA, before being delivered to Caritas for sorting by hand at a recycling plant. The Caritas recycling facility provides secure employment to more than 70 people with disabilities. After sorting, the textiles will be delivered to Södra for recycling and processing to produce OnceMore^® pulp. This method is the world’s first industrial recycling of textile waste made from blended fibers. Lenzing will then apply its innovative REFIBRA™ technology to produce new lyocell and viscose fibers.

Furthermore, the researchers at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), have created a new nanomaterial that they say can clean up these dyes and other pollutants from industrial wastewater. The material consists of tiny sand-like grains, only visible to the naked eye in clusters, which collect pollutants on their surfaces and in their pores, says Enas Nashef, project lead and a professor of chemical engineering at Khalifa University. The nanomaterial consists of a substance called a polymer that mimics the “glue” that mussels use to stick themselves to rocks, combined with a solvent.

Furthermore this week, Fashion e-tailer Shein has partnered with circular economy technology company Queen of Raw to achieve a fully circular textile industry by 2050. Shein is utilizing Queen of Raw’s proprietary software, Materia MX, to source existing materials from brands and retailers looking to clear out their excess fabric inventory responsibly. According to Queen of Raw’s impact measuring algorithms, diverting 1 million yards of fabrics from excess inventory would set Shein’s goals in sight with repurposing deadstock materials, helping conserve water, and preventing the creation of carbon dioxide equivalents that would have been generated through conventional production methods.