Leaves, Roots, Tea Dust, Madder & More to Make Natural Dyes at BioDye are Self-Certified

As the demand for earth-friendly dyes increases with sustainability and circularity gradually gaining currency, are you able to meet the requirements? What steps are you taking to increase your capacity?
Since we dye manually we have a limited capacity. Also, authentic raw material is not plentiful. We are developing methods which can be used to dye a select range of colours in machines. Also, we are trying to develop suitable agricultural models to grow the red and blue dye yielding plants, and obtain funding to support the initial farming trials.

What is the minimum and maximum quantities for dyeing the fabrics and weaving the fabrics? How do they fare with the cost factor?
We can dye 1 tonne of yarn/fabric/apparel per month. We are expensive, as we have to maintain a large inventory to compensate for batch-to-batch variation in colour properties. The raw material itself is expensive. For instance, unadulterated natural indigo is approximately ₹4,000 per kg for 35 per cent strength. Lac is approximately ₹7,500 per kg. Powdered madder is approximately ₹550 per kg. 

We use expensive laboratory, food or pharma grade inputs instead of cheaper technical grade products. We dye in a month what most synthetic dye houses dye in a day. Our labour has to be retained irrespective of demand. All this adds to our cost.

Do we have enough resources to produce in bulk?
There is a shortage of cultivated raw material because of the lack of sustained demand. We are working with farmer groups in Nagaland state to grow madder. Only when we consume more than 1–2 tonnes per annum can we elicit farmer interest and afford to support this activity. Similarly, approximately 2–3 tonnes of unadulterated natural indigo is produced per annum. 

The rest of it is often adulterated and therefore cheap. We need to improve the agro-technology of indigo cultivation (better varieties) and extraction (mechanisation) to improve yields and reduce cost. Iron-vinegar fermentation needs to be scaled up. We have chosen leaves of shrubs for yellow and earth colours. These can be easily and quickly cultivated when demand rises.

How do you keep the colours earth-friendly?
The colours are kept environment-friendly by using enzymes (not caustic) for scouring; peroxide (not hypochlorite) for bleaching; alum and iron vinegar as mordants (chromium, copper and tin are not used); sustainable parts of plants (not bark, wood, roots and wild flowers) and lac as dye source; natural indigo is applied from a fermentation vat; detergent and a water softener that can be precipitated (these are the only synthetic carbonaceous compounds used and are non-toxic and biodegradable) are employed; all other inputs are natural ingredients and non-toxic inorganic compounds (at concentrations used). These are precipitated in waste water tanks, the sludge is composted and used as manure and the treated water is used to irrigate coconut and cashew trees.

To dye the fabrics, scouring, bleaching and mordant dyeing takes two days and vat dyeing (indigo) takes as many days as the number of dips, plus another day for scouring and one more for final washing. 
BioDye can dye most of the Pantone shades and meet the fastness criteria too. Our natural dyed textiles can compete with synthetic dyes in range and performance. 

By shifting to natural dyeing, the pollution wrought by the use of synthetics dyes can slowly be reduced. BioDye also encourages those around them to cultivate trees and adopt organic farm practices. However, in our own backyard, economic factors push farmers towards conventional farming practices as the soil is of poor quality. We are, therefore, working with NGOs in Assam and Nagaland to grow dye and fibre yielding plants.

What are the certifications that your company goes for? What do you have to say about recent controversies like the suspension of the accreditation of Control Union (CU) India from testing and sampling of Indian organic textile products on charges of irregularities?
The certifying agencies grant organic certification to synthetic dyed products, and we cannot understand how it is done. We do not wish to be lumped together with such ‘organic’ certified products. Also certification is a start-to-end system from field to shop. Most of our clients weave on handlooms and it is prohibitively expensive to get the handloom weaver in the certification loop. Hence, we do not go in for certification. We encourage our clients to see the process themselves and self-certify. Most of them hire professional photographers to document our operations and record our story which is presented to their clients.