Ecological safety of Procion dyes


Name: Tammy

Country or region: US

Message: Hi. Ivy at Dharma suggested asking you. We dye with Procion dye. We are looking to see if it has any ecological qualities? We are dying on sustainable cottons and modal and checking to see if there is anything "green" about the dyes we're currently using. Appreciate any help you can offer.

There are two sides to this story: how much damage does using the dyes do to the environment, if any, and how much damage is done when the dyes are first manufactured?

As far as the second is concerned, it's funny that Dharma sent you to me, because only our dye suppliers can find out for us where the dyes we use are manufactured. Are the dyes manufactured in facilities that treat their wastewater and avoid damaging the environment, or are they manufactured in facilities whose bad practices cause environmental damage that will take decades to pay for? All we can do is ask our dye suppliers, including Dharma, to find some sort of certification concerning the environmental standards practiced by each factory from which their suppliers purchase dyes.

There has been quite a bit of discussion on my site about the environmental aspects of using dyes. I was just replying to another question on this topic, from Candy Glendenning at Candied Fabrics:

Paula, If anyone knows the answer to this, you do! I've searched through your website and forum, and haven't found a discussion about this, although maybe it's there. I have many people that ask whether my dyeing method (soda ash with Procion MX fiber reactive dyes) is eco-friendly and non-toxic. What are your thoughts on this? Or do you have someplace to point me to that helps me compare using these to other ways of coloring cloth? Thanks! Candy

Here are some pages with discussions on that topic. More than you expected, I'm sure. More than I realized I had!

"Are Reactive Dyes eco-friendly?"

"Are Procion dyes are considered "green", i.e. environmentally harmless?"

"Are natural fabric dyes best for the environment?"

"How do you minimize the toxic outflow in the waste water of the Procion particulates?"

"What are low-impact dyes, and why are they considered low-impact on the environment?"

"Explaining the safety of Procion dye to 'organic' moms"

"Is it safe to dye a sling for my baby?"

"If I buy the Tie Dye kit by Jacquard it will be non-toxic once it is mixed?"

"Procion Dyes in the environment"

"Toxicity of Procion Dyes"

"Dye safety and bladder cancer"

Candy wrote,
Reading through all of those posts, I'm assured that the dyes that I use have low impact on the environment - the info about microbes breaking them down is very helpful. BUT...I think the biggest issue of all is the PRODUCTION of these dyes, right? How do we know they're being made responsibly? The links to the Dystar EU-label and Oeko-tex Standard 100 certifications are out of date, probably because Dystar isn't manufacturing them anymore. And a search for ProcionMX manufacturers just takes me to distributors, and YOU! ;-)

As Candy says, we dyers don't know anything about which factories our dyes are made from, and have no idea whether some of them are more environmentally responsible than others. We need to ask Dharma Trading Company and all of our other dye suppliers to find this information from their suppliers, and provide some sort of certification as to the acceptability of the dye manufacturers in question. It seems likely that some are better than others. Facilities in Europe must have much more stringent regulations to follow than those in China, but I think that all or most of our dyes now are most likely manufactured in China or India. What are the European regulations on environmental standards for the manufacture of dyes imported from overseas? The regulations I know about restrict contamination of dyes with heavy metals and carcinogens, but don't, as far as I know, mention the environmental practices at their factories of origin. We need more information on this question.

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Posted: Friday - October 14, 2011 at 08:28 AM          

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