Cost of Colour

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www.kathybeckett.co.uk www.colour-ecology.co.uk kathrynalicebeckett@gmail.com I am and avid colourist and the interaction / psychology of colour has always been intrinsic to my work as a textile practitioner. This was transparent during my final year at The GSA where colour interaction was the foundation of an exploration in many mediums. As I continue to evolve my practice colour remains inherent to my research, focussing particularly on ecological methods of production. More recently I have been learning about the impact that the production of colour can have on our environment. One of my particular concerns is the need for ecodesign. I hope to encourage other designers to be aware that their choices have consequences and that they can and are part of the universal need for a more ecological economy.

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THE COST OF COLOUR

Textile Department Sustainability Day @The GSofA I have always been dramatically drawn to colour and I think it’s because quite simply it makes me happy – I realise the potential it has to make others happy too. It has therefore always played a big part in my practice as a textile designer. And I am sure it is a huge part of the work that each you do here at The GSA. During my degree here I decided that I wanted to go a bit further than simply exploring colour at my finger tips.

Revellers at a Holi Festival celebration India - The Big Picture (REUTERS/Babu) www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/holi_the_festival_of_colors.html

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I wanted to find out how colour actually worked. So I began looking further into colour theory. Initially this was quite overwhelming and it almost felt limiting to the work I was doing, because I kept trying to implement the colour ‘rules’ I had been learning.

When I found the ideas that resonated with me, implementing what I had learnt became a lot easier.

Interaction of Colours- Josef ALbers - Yale University Press (fp 1963) The Beginners Guide to Colour Psychology- Angela Wright - K. Cathie (1999)

I became particularly interested in colour interaction and I particularly Josef Albers ‘Interaction of Colour’. I also became fascinated by colour psychology. Angela Wright offers a nice introduction and balanced view on this topic.

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I focussed on using these theories within my work and the product of this was my degree show in June where colour was the foundation of an exploration in many mediums.

After graduation I started to think a lot about the production methods that I had used, in particular I had worked with glass fusing which is a very energy consuming process where you have to heat a kiln to up to 800 degrees centigrade by burning gas over many hours. I also used over a hundred different colours in my knitted textiles. So I was left with a crucial question... What is the environmental cost of the things that I design?

Over the past six months I have been trying to understand some of the environmental impacts of the Textile Industry so that I can be a more responsible an environmentally concerned designer.

‘Silicone Mica’ - Kathy Beckett - Graduate Collection

Our industry is the number one polluter of water in the world. When a third of the world’s population doesn’t have access to clean water this seems mad. To put this into context, the dyeing of one cotton t-shirt will use 16-20 litres of water.

Cotton is a dye repellent fibre and only 80% of the dye is retained by the fibre, 20% remains in the water. The global textile industry discharges up to 50,000 tonnes of dye into water systems per year. [1] Vegetable dye bathhs - Fez, Morroco - Yuriko Takagi Selvedge Issue 50 - Global - “Beauty unfolds”

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This image shows a cotton effluent (or waste water) processing plant in Thailand. And you can really see the extent of damage to the water.

Okay so we pollute the water but then surely all we have to do is treat the water to drinking standard again, like we do with sewage? But can you imagine how much extra energy it takes to then process that water so that it is drinkable?

Not only do you have to consider the energy output.... but what is the potential danger, if say the water wasn’t processed to a high enough standard?

Cotton effluent plant - Sanga Tubtimhin - Pollution Minimisation and Energy Saving Potentials in the Cotton Dyeing Industry - Masters Thesis (2002)

Expelled wastewater can pollute the environment with its heat, its increased pH (which can affect soil and therefore growth), and it carries not just dye but potentially; de-foamers, bleaches,detergents,optical brighteners and equalizers. [2]

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The toxic chemicals in dyeing can also cause problems for the work force and some men who are enslaved in the industry have to consistently submerge their arms, permanently dying their skin.

This is a silk dyer in Pradesh India who is not paid for the work that he does, his arms will remain in intense colour for the rest of his life.

So what are our options?

A silk dyer in India Pradesh - Lisa Kristine - TED: Photos that bear witness to modern slavery. (www.ted.com)

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Well although the subject of sustainability can be daunting and you might feel like the only one who is interested, there are a great deal of people taking action to change the way they work so that generations ahead of us aren’t left with a huge problem. Companies like ColorZen, O Eco Textiles and EcoMetrics make responsible choices on an Industrial scale.

ColorZen are a company that treat cotton in a special way so that the dyeing process is less consumptive. “ColorZen cotton dyes three times faster, with 75% less energy, and 90% less water. Most importantly, it requires no toxic chemicals.” [3] O Eco Textiles produce non-toxic, ethical and sustainable textiles. They fully analyse their production process to ensure that non of their manufacturers support the use of pesticides, fertilizers or chemicals that can pollute our soil and groundwater. Their waste water is treated properly by containing chemicals and they also ensure that the fibres they use can biodegrade. It is also essential to them that the manufacturers they work with pay fair wages and provide good working conditions. [4] EcoMetrics facilitate manufacturers to calculate the potential harm they’re production process can cause to the environment. Thus showing where the most negative impact is, allowing manufacturers to actively re-access the way the operate. www.oecotextiles.com www.colorzen.com www.colour-connections.com/EcoMetrics/

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WOOL FARMING Land management Sheep graze and grow

MILL Raw fleece Cleaning/Bleaching Carding

TEXTILE DESIGNER / MANUFACTURER

FASHION / FURNISHINGS MANUFACTURER

Transport

Transport

Knitting/Weaving

Cutting

Washing

Sewing

Steaming

Application to product

Printing/Embroidering

Packaging

Steaming /Washing

Transport

Drawing

Fleece is shawn

Roving Spinning

Transport of fleece to wool marketing board Sorting of fleece Transport

DYEING Coning Packaging Transport

CONSUMER A basic process diagram of Wool to Consumer - Kathy Beckett 2013

I think that this is one of the most important things we can do as designers... to really consider the process behind the materials that we use. The way we make our own textiles we have control over. But what about the process before our fabrics? We need to take responsibility for the system as a whole, from the growth of the fibre to the transport of the final product. You can see from this diagram that transport appears often in production processes so as wool is our local and native fibre I am choosing to use only British wool in my textiles.

The most high impact part of the processing of a fibre is dyeing, as washing the fibre clean from dye, consumes and pollutes the most water. So the way I have started to intercept my textile system is to use natural dyeing techniques with woolen yarn. It is important to note that natural dyes are not without their potential harm as well. There are three key issues with natural dyeing – their mordants, the time/energy consumption of the dye process and the ethics behind colour production.

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Cochineal red comes from the blood of pregnant insects. They are collected from cactuses, dried and ground into a pigment that is not only a dyestuff but food additive E120.

Cochineal insects on a cactus - Victoria Finlay - Colour:Travels through the Paintbox.

Ground cochineal beetles - www.101thingstodosw.com

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A Gamboge tree after it has been tapped - www.fao.org Ground Gamboge - www.color.wikia.com/wiki/Gamboge

Gamboge Yellow is the sap of a Cambodian tree. The tree is slashed and tapped, then left to bleed for two years. The resin is then collected and when touched with water it turns a beautiful yellow. In the 1980’s bullets were found in Windsor and Newton’s consignments of gamboge resin [5], the tree fields were discovered to be past war zones where unexploded mines lay – people had risked and probably lost their lives to collect this colour.

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Indigo dyeing - Aboubakar Fofana - Selvedge Issue 49

Indigo blue comes from the fermented leaves of Indigo plants. Fermenting the leaves is an intensive and high impact process. They are then dried ground and dissolved in a vat with an alkaline mixture of caustic soda and dythionite. It can take many months for vat to be ready so it is now much more common (as with most colours) to use a synthetic form of indigo. Unfortunately one particular chemical used in the production of synthetic indigo is a mutagen and can change the structure of DNA.

With natural dyeing mordants or fixatives are used. To acquire colours you need to use certain mordants like tin, copper, chrome or iron. These mordants tend to achieve more vibrant colours but can leave damaging toxins in the water. The safest mordant is alum as you use only use 2% of it to fibre weight and almost all of it is absorbed by the fibre[6]. It is also a salt crystal that people use on their skin for its deodorising properties so in its raw state it is entirely harmless. While commonly used in water treatment plants for our drinking water.

Alum mordanted yarns can have some issues with colour fastness, and the colours achieved might not ‘pop’ quite as much... but I think that this is just one of the types of compromises we have to start building into our design systems.

Alum - pottasium alum sulphate crystal - www.ifood.tv/network/alum_powder

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Depending on the dyestuff you might need a 1:1 ratio of dyestuff to fibre. So potentially you have to source 1kg of tansy flower if you need 1kg of yellow yarn which could be classed as high impact. However to justify chemical dyes, they would have to have close to 100% uptake unlike our 80% cotton friend, and they would need to be void of heavy metals (and you can find dyes like this). The synthesizing process performed in dye labs would also have to be environmentally sound. In order to understand this process a bit better I will be working on a project with a friend of mine who is a chemist and we will experiment with dye synthesis.

However for the moment I remain confident in natural dyes particularly because you have the opportunity to ensure that the dye is sourced both organically and sustainably.

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This is Eva who owns the natural dyeing company Shilasdair with Tony based on the Isle of Skye. They provide small to medium scale production (up to 18kg of yarn at a time!) they predominantly use alum mordant but also copper sulphate and tin. They restrict their use of copper to less than 2kg annually which is no more than people put on their gardens and the tin is restricted to less than 1kg annually.

They also use alkalis and organic acids to control the pH of their dye baths which go through a settlement tank before they drain the harmless water onto their croft land. The amount of metal mordants they use falls within the soil association guidelines for organic production. They try to exhaust all their dyes into yarn by using dye solution multiple times and they also grow a variety of their own dye plants.

Eva Lambert in her dyeing studio - Shilasdair Yarns

So by looking at the whole production process and choosing aspects to focus on, it is possible to make ecological choices and compromises. This relies on the designer implementing ecodesign and sustainable design systems from the outset and accepting a certain amount of responsibility for their choice in production methods. Ursula Tishner’s sustainable and ecodesign diagram illustrates how we can build these choices into our design methodologies.

Sustainable Design and Eco Design diagram - Ursula Tischner - www.econcept.org

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We can use Braungart and Mcdonough’s Cradle to Cradle manifesto where by non toxic, non harmful production methods are used in circular systems... as opposed to a linear take / make / waste society[7].

We also have to accept that the environment that our economy relies on for physical growth of pigments, food and all raw materials ( and therefore economic growth ) is of greater importance and we must protect it for our future generations by implementing these systems.

William McDonough at TED: Cradle to cradle design (2005) www.ted.com

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These values of responsibility have to held by the consumer also.

Whether it is by choosing a scarf that is manufactured in Scotland, a jumper that is un-dyed or unbleached, or even a sweatshop free skirt. We also have to engage people in these values. The ecology of colour building in Dartford exists to house workshops teaching the processes of growing and using natural dyes to the general public and schemes like this are perfect ways to get people to open their minds to the work behind their product.

Ecology of Colour house in Dartford http://www.studioweave.com/projects/ecology-of-colour-dartford/

The ethics that I have talked about today can be nicely summarised by Permaculture Ethics.

Permaculture is a philosophy and approach to living and working with our environment in an ethical, conscious, caring, harmonious, sustainable, ecological, responsible, affordable and logical way.

When we Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share, we consider the care for our environment and fellow man and we naturally tend towards sharing resources fairly.

Central permaculture ethics - www.permacultureprinciples.com/ethics

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These ideas, like my initial feelings about ‘colour rules’ might feel restrictive at first, but each individual has to find the philosophies that resonate them. We have to draw our own lines like Eva and Tony do at Shilasdair and find solutions that work for us as well as our environment.

I have to admit that I have found learning about these environmental issues challenging and I’m sure I will continue to do so. I have often thought about escaping to a Hebridean Island to knit only jumpers for local folk. But that would be a passive response. We need people who are moved by these issues to actively participate in the industry in a sustainable way. I hope that some of what we share with you today will inspire you to do so.

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References [1] http://www.ethicalfashionforum.com/the-issues/dyes [2] http://www.oecotextiles.com/ecostories.php [3] www.colorzen.com [4] http://www.oecotextiles.com/ecostories.php [5] Finlay,Victoria - Colour:Travels through the Paintbox p245 [6] Lambert, Eva - Complete Guide to Natural Dyeing [7] http://www.ted.com/talks/william_mcdonough_on_cradle_to_cradle_design.html