US' Ralph Lauren & Dow open-source new cotton dyeing process

The companies aim to help standardise a more sustainable and efficient cotton dyeing system for positive environmental impact.

The co-developed, step-by-step manual details how to use Ecofast Pure, a cationic cotton treatment developed by Dow, with existing dyeing equipment. Ralph Lauren, the first brand to use Ecofast Pure, partnered with Dow to optimise and implement the technology in its cotton dyeing operations as part of its new Color on Demand platform.

Conventional fabric dyeing processes require trillions of litres of water each year, generating roughly 20 per cent of the world’s wastewater. Pretreating fabric with Ecofast Pure helps significantly reduce the amount of water, chemicals and energy needed to colour cotton, by enabling up to 90 per cent less process chemicals, 50 per cent less water, 50 per cent less dyes and 40 per cent less energy without sacrificing colour or quality.

“As fashion supply chains look to recover from impacts of the pandemic, there is a critical window to build more sustainable practices into production processes,” said Mary Draves, chief sustainability officer at Dow. “By collaborating today to scale a less resource intensive dyeing process, we can help address pressing challenges, like climate change and water resiliency, in the long-term.”

“If we want to protect our planet for the next generation, we have to create scalable solutions that have never been considered before. This requires deep and sometimes unexpected collaboration and a willingness to break down the barriers of exclusivity,” said Halide Alagöz, chief product & sustainability officer at Ralph Lauren. “We are proud to have partnered with Dow on this innovation and to share it openly with our industry, with the hope that it will help transform how we preserve and use water in our global supply chains.”

Ralph Lauren began integrating Color on Demand into its supply chain earlier this year and first launched product utilising Ecofast Pure as part of the Company’s Team USA collection for the Olympic & Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020. Designed to help address water scarcity and pollution caused by cotton dyeing, Color on Demand is a multi-phased system with a clear ambition to deliver over time the world’s first scalable zero wastewater cotton dyeing system. By 2025, the brand aims to use the Color on Demand platform to dye more than 80 per cent of its solid cotton products.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KD)