WEBVTT - How Could Blue Denim Be Greener?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brainstuffe A production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>Lauren bobabam here. Whatever color your clothes are, the process

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<v Speaker 1>to make them that way is probably pretty toxic. According

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<v Speaker 1>to the United Nations Environment Assembly, textile dying is the

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<v Speaker 1>second largest water polluter in the world, and not only

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<v Speaker 1>is the dyeing process rife with harmful chemicals, it's very

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<v Speaker 1>water intensive. Your average pair of jeans takes up to

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<v Speaker 1>twenty six gallons. That's a hundred liters of water to

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<v Speaker 1>die in. These days of fast fashion, our hunger for

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<v Speaker 1>trendy clothes is directly harming us and a lot of

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<v Speaker 1>other organisms and ecosystems all over the world. The denim

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<v Speaker 1>industry alone uses over forty five thousand tons of synthetic

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<v Speaker 1>indigo a year, more than eighty four thousand tons of

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<v Speaker 1>sodium hydro sulfite and fifty three thousand tons of lie.

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<v Speaker 1>According to scientists at the University of Georgia, this adds

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<v Speaker 1>up to a big environmental problem. However, a research team

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<v Speaker 1>at that university has worked out a solution that eliminates

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<v Speaker 1>noxious chemicals from the denim dyeing process while using a

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<v Speaker 1>fraction of the water, but let's back up a step back.

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<v Speaker 1>In the seventeen hundreds, indigo, the plant that historically gave

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<v Speaker 1>denim that iconic blue color, was a major export of

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<v Speaker 1>the American colonies. These days, however, we die our blue

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<v Speaker 1>jeans with synthetic indigo pigment, which is why you can

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<v Speaker 1>buy a pair of jeans for fifteen bucks. But no

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<v Speaker 1>matter whether the indigo is natural or synthetic, the process

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<v Speaker 1>of dying denom requires a strong reducing agent to make

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<v Speaker 1>the dye dissolve in water. For the article of this

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<v Speaker 1>episode is based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with Sergei Minko,

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<v Speaker 1>a co author of the study and a professor in

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<v Speaker 1>the College of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University

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<v Speaker 1>of Georgia. He said, the commercial technology for dyeing textiles

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<v Speaker 1>uses aggressive chemicals. For denim, a strong toxic reducing agent,

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<v Speaker 1>old sodium hydrosulfite is used to make it soluble. Some

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<v Speaker 1>amount of this reducing agent is used in each stage

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<v Speaker 1>of a repeating process anywhere from five to ten times

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<v Speaker 1>if they want to get an intense shade. And as

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<v Speaker 1>we said, this process uses a huge amount of water.

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<v Speaker 1>A pair of genes can take up to two thousand

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<v Speaker 1>gallons to produce, and that's about once you consider the

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<v Speaker 1>water it takes to grow the cotton, dye the fabric,

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<v Speaker 1>and manufacture the pants. Not only that, but many of

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<v Speaker 1>the chemicals involved in denim dyeing don't degrade in the environment.

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<v Speaker 1>While the technology does exist to filter the toxic chemicals

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<v Speaker 1>out of the water before it hits a river or

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<v Speaker 1>a stream, many of the places in the world where

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<v Speaker 1>garment production happens at China and Bangladesh, for instance, don't

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<v Speaker 1>require the infrastructure to remove the chemicals from the water

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<v Speaker 1>before it contaminates waterways and ends up poisoning wildlife people

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<v Speaker 1>in crops. Minko said. Some of the environments where they

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<v Speaker 1>die text ills, everything is artificially colored in different shades.

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<v Speaker 1>Of course, the major damage doesn't come from the dyes themselves,

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<v Speaker 1>but high salt concentrations and these reducing agents, which can

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<v Speaker 1>be very aggressive in ecosystems. So let's talk about the

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<v Speaker 1>new denom dying method that the researchers came up with.

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<v Speaker 1>This process mixes cellulose nanoparticles called kitisen that are made

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<v Speaker 1>from wood pulp with natural indigo dye. Although the researchers

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<v Speaker 1>believe synthetic dies could also be used. This mixture creates

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<v Speaker 1>a sort of gel that can be applied to the

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<v Speaker 1>fabric a single time to yield an intense indigo color,

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<v Speaker 1>compared with the multiple dip process of conventional dyeing that

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<v Speaker 1>requires up to ten applications of dye to yield a

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<v Speaker 1>dark shade. The kitisen essentially glues the pigment in place

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<v Speaker 1>after the fabric dries, creating a sort of matrix of

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<v Speaker 1>dye that coats the fibers of the denom. Because this

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<v Speaker 1>process doesn't involve dissolving the indigo dye, and no reducing

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<v Speaker 1>agents are necessary, thus cutting the amount of water used

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<v Speaker 1>in conventional dyeing methods by about nine Not only that,

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<v Speaker 1>but the process is non toxic, the drying time for

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<v Speaker 1>the kitis and dye is shorter, and the new technique

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<v Speaker 1>yields fabric of the same weight, thickness, and overall feel

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<v Speaker 1>as traditionally died denim. Here's hoping that more research can

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<v Speaker 1>bring this new fabric technology out of the lab and

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<v Speaker 1>into practice. Today's episode is based on the article A

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<v Speaker 1>New Green Solution for dyeing blue denim on how to

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<v Speaker 1>works dot Com, written by Jesslin Shields. Brain Stuff is

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<v Speaker 1>production of iHeart Radio in partnership with how stuff works

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<v Speaker 1>dot com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang. For more

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