Living and Dyeing

You may be surprised to know that the shirt you wore today has about 8000 chemicals, many of them carcinogenic. It probably contaminated about 2000 liters of water in the process of becoming a finished garment. The main culprit is ‘Textile Dyeing’ which uses chemical dyes. Cotton goes through ginning (removing cotton seeds), spinning (making threads), weaving or knitting (cloth or T-shirt material), bleaching, mordanting (to make colors bright and fast), dyeing and finishing before it becomes finished product. The process of bleaching, dyeing and finishing in the conventional textile industry are water intensive and make use of hundreds of different chemicals. The waste water even though treated to some extent is full of chemicals still and ultimately get released to water system or soil causing massive pollution. This still does not exclude the pollution caused by manufacturing of chemical dyes. India and specifically Gujarat is major hub for dyes and textiles and hence water and soil pollutions in textile mills dominated areas have been major issues in the past.

Now imagine you are able to get rid of the chemicals, cause no water pollution and still be able to get your favorite colors. Well, this has been made possible by Arun Baid of Aura Herbal Wear whose factory I visited a few days back. Arun and his wife Sonal have setup a herbal dyeing facility at Narol, Ahmedabad and they use flowers, herbs and leaves along with water and natural light to dye textile. Starting with hand-dying a few meters of clothes per day to commercial scale of 1500 meters a day, Arun and his team have come a long way. Now, they have an integrated facility where they control the complete process starting from yarn production to garment stitching. The waste water is recycled and used again in the factory and for growing herbs and flowers in the factory backyard. The solid waste is used like manure. It is truly a self contained unit without any negative impact on the environment (if you don’t count the electricity used in the factory). Arun holds a patent on the herbal dyeing process.

The brand they use on their clothes is ‘Aura’. They have been able to successfully market their clothes in the Europe and North America and have been certified by SKAL international. However, business is yet to pick up full steam and use the recently upgraded capacity at the factory. Like any entrepreneurship, Arun is facing the challenges around managing growth and where to put his attention. They had a retail store in Ahmedabad which they shifted inside the factory premises because it was difficult to manage in the city. The dyeing process can be compared to cooking on a commercial scale and hence results can be different if careful attention is not paid to each and every process and ingredients. Customers however demand consistent color and quality for every order.

Arun’s vision is to make a positive impact on the environment and that is possible only when herbal dyeing constitutes a significant portion of textile dyeing. He speaks passionately about the beauty of nature and how nature’s cycles are the most efficient. He also gets agitated while talking about the insensitivities of the dye industry and textile companies with regard to the pollution they cause. He knows what they do, because before starting Aura Herbal Wear, Arun was an expert on recycling waste and ran a business of recycling waste for over fifteen years. It is sense of fulfillment from doing something good for the environment that drives Arun and he is ready to partner with anyone who is as passionate to promote the herbal dyeing concept.

Hats off to Arun and his team for making a positive impact on the environment while providing livelihood to many. We cannot stop using clothes but at least we can at least stop polluting water and soil by choosing natural dyeing or herbal dyeing. This is the kind of sustainable development that TINAPLANET salutes.

For more on Arun Baid and Aura Herbal Wear, visit http://www.auraherbalwear.com/ or http://ww3.virtualvox.com/aura/