One of the world's most polluting industries is the textile-dyeing sector, which in China and other Asian nations releases trillions of liters of chemically tainted wastewater. But new waterless dyeing technologies, if adopted on a large scale, could sharply cut pollution from the clothing industry.

 

Each year, one global industry gulps down trillions of liters of fresh water, together with massive amounts of chemicals. The wastewater from that industry is then dumped, often untreated, into rivers that bring its toxic content to the sea, where it spreads around the globe.

 

Textile dyeing produces trillions of liters of wastewater each year, especially in China.

 

Now, new waterless dyeing technologies are being developed and deployed that could help reduce the vast quantities of pollution generated by textile dyeing. In recent years, three companies have each developed a largely waterless dyeing technology. Two are American enterprises - AirDye and ColorZen - and the third is a Dutch company, DyeCoo, whose process is being used by Adidas, one of its partners.

 

Although the three processes are very different from each other, the results are much the same. The use of water is cut to near-zero, sharply diminishing pollution. The quantity of chemicals is drastically reduced, while faster dyeing cycles lead to a major drop in energy consumption.