The new green legislation that Europe is finalizing for the textile industry and the increasingly recurrent water restrictions are accelerating technological changes in the sector to try to reduce its strong environmental impact. In this context, the Modacc cluster, an association that brings together 150 fashion companies in Catalonia, has developed a new clothing dyeing technique – Recicolor – with the support of Acció, the agency for business competitiveness of the Generalitat. .
The process is based on the use of recycled dyes, obtained from textile waste, to be incorporated back into the value chain and used again in the garment dyeing mechanism. The project has been carried out at the facilities of the company Escorpión, in Igualada, with the technical support of FITEX, the participation of the UdL and the technical collaboration of OFFICINA 39. “Once its effective use has been proven, the objective is to scale it and introduce it in clothing production systems to reduce the use of chemicals and water,” explains Laia Pons, head of the Innovation department at Escorpión.
The dyes and chemicals derived from the textile dyeing process that end up in wastewater represent a big problem, since they cannot be eliminated with simple methods and cause a high environmental impact. Currently, in Europe, 108 million tons of polluting effluents are produced each year, which are loaded with 36 million auxiliary chemicals.
The project, which is part of Acció’s call for aid to Initiatives to Strengthen Competitiveness (IRC), cost 91,918 euros and has received a subsidy of 60,000 euros. In a first phase, a study has been carried out to know the current situation of sustainable dyeing processes and the new process with the recycled dyes to be used has been identified. In the next phase of experimentation, a series of staining tests have been carried out at laboratory level, until a pilot test can be carried out on an industrial scale. Finally, a technical, economic and environmental evaluation of the new developed process has been carried out. In total, the project has lasted one year.
“These circularity systems are more expensive than traditional ones, but we hope that consumers will become increasingly sensitive and demanding with sustainable production,” comments David García, general director of Modacc.
