ABSTRACT
Dyeing, printing and finishing is commonly referred to as wet processing in the textile industry. Unfortunately the environmental impact is driven precisely because these steps are performed wet, billions of tonnes of hot water is needed to dye fabric and this requires significant amounts of heat. Furthermore, this dye and salt-contaminated water is discharged into the environment, causing significant local pollution. This makes wet processing the second largest contributor to energy consumption in fashion production and a highly problematic cause of environmental water pollution.
In this chapter, we describe how the fashion industry’s demanding requirements for perfection in colouration in combination with the need for highly flexible production has led the industry to use high-energy batch processing for dyeing. The chapter explains the use of energy in wet processing and provides quantification of the impacts of the various steps required to deliver the final finished fabric.
There is now significant industry focus on decarbonisation of colouration and in this chapter the options to replace or eliminate the energy-intensive colouration processes are explored. The chapter describes the potential benefit of emerging technologies and the opportunity to reduce energy consumption and chemical emissions from traditional wet processing operations.
