New green solution for safer clothes

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The new recipes will hopefully take away the clothing industry’s most dangerous chemicals. Mary Jonstrups, a PhD Student in biotechnology at the Faculty of Engineering in the Swedish University city Lund have developed a new method to purify dyed textile water has great potential. Textile Dyeing qualify as one of the clothing manufacture worst polluter. When staining is released persistent and harmful chemicals that are too often placed in the ground water and arable land. But Mary Jonstrup, has developed a new, environmentally friendly cleaning process only leave clean water behind. The research is certainly still a great research only and, therefore, are only tested in the laboratory. But Mary Jonstrup is optimistic about the future potential. - Yes, in the long run it should be used by textile mills in India, China and Bangladesh. If it works in the lab scale, it is quite likely that the technique also works sharply, she said. In her thesis, she has experimented with both fungal enzymes that bacteria from the textile industries and municipal wastewater treatment plants. But it was not until she combined two types of treatment processes – a biological and a chemical-by her good fortune came. - Through contact with an Indian magazine and their subcontractors, we have already done sampling and testing at a factory in India. Because the garment manufacture had quite a bad reputation in recent years, it is otherwise quite difficult to get access to it, she says. The idea for the research came about when Mary Jonstrups supervisor Bo Mattiasson, professor of biotechnology, in 2002, toured India and visited the textile industries. He observed the problem and initiated the project as Maria Jonstrup tagged on. The work has been funded by Sida. For more information, contact: Mary Jonstrup, PhD, Biotechnology, 046-222 48 18, 0707-42 1752, Maria.Jonstrup@biotek.lu.se Bo Mattiasson, Professor, Biotechnology, 046-222 82 64 070-60 59 830, Bo.Mattiasson@biotek.lu.se. Kaj Embrén, Sustainable Business Coach, +46-70-398 22 11, kaj@embren.com.