Hello readers and welcome back to this discussion on deadly denim. In this post I will highlight the environmental damage caused by the denim sector. Denim requires a lot of water to produce, but a lot of dyes too. How else can we obtain such a unique looking fabric?

A large amount of the water needed to produce denim goes to dyeing it, where water acts as a medium. Ideally, we would dye our denim with natural indigo, but in 2020 there’s almost always a synthetic version of everything. Synthetic indigo was thus introduced in 1987, but not without its fair share of poison. Synthetic indigo contains toxic chemicals like sulphurs and aniline. It is mixed with other synthetic dyes which contain heavy metals like lead and copper. This creates a non-biodegradable, toxic solution which is harmful to ecosystems. As all dyes do, they are washed out in the process, colouring the wastewater and bringing along those chemicals into the water. This wastewater is rarely treated before being discharged into the drainage system.

A famous example would be in the town of Xintang, China, where most of the denim in China is produced. Due to the sheer volume of jeans being produced, part of the Pearl River adjacent to the horde of factories had turned black, with denim scraps on the river bank.

Knowing what I do know now, I will think twice before purchasing another pair of jeans. While I do love the versatility of denim, the social and environmental costs are definitely not worth paying for. I hope that by placing the spotlight on dyes, you will ponder on the use of dyes for our everyday clothing and not just denim, because that’s something that I’ll be thinking about for days.

♡, Qystina

Sources:

Arjun, D., Hiranmayee, J., & Farheen, M. N. (2013). Technology Of Industrial Denim Washing: Review. International Journal of Industrial Engineering & Technology (IJIET), 3(4), 25-34.

Muthu, S. S. (Ed.). (2017). Sustainability in Denim. Matthew Deans.

The denim capital of the world: so polluted you can’t give the houses away. (2013, August 13). China Dialogue. Retrieved October 1, 2020, from https://chinadialogue.net/en/pollution/6283-the-denim-capital-of-the-world-so-polluted-you-can-t-give-the-houses-away/