November 19, 2017 Dirty Denim Getting Cleaner?
Canadian river activist Mark Angelo has paddled waterways all over the world for decades. In River Blue, a new featurelength documentary, he returns to rivers on several continents and finds pollution on an alarming scale. The textile industry, and denim factories in particular, are seen to be major culprits of hazardous chemicals.
One of the locations the film team visits is the Chinesetown of Xintang, dubbed the denim capital of the world, where toxic textile dyes color the nearby Pearl River indigo blue and pollution has wiped out most fish life.
There is, however, hope for a cleaner future. River Blue also looks into sustainable denim production processes. Mark Angelo and directors David McIlvride and Roger Williams hope that their film will inspire more manufacturers around the world to take greater environmental responsibility and encourage viewers to demand sustainable jeans.
“The textile industry is very consumer driven, so as consumerswe are in a position to do something about this and there are positive solutions,” contends Mark Angelo.
A recent example of this came in November 2017, when Anubha Industry became the first Bluesign System Partneramong denim manufacturers in India, following in the footstepsof denim partners in China, Turkey and Vietnam.
“Anubha has shown its commitment towards sustainable denim production and we are proud they have chosen us as their partner for chemical management,” says Jill Dumain, Chief Executive Officer at Bluesign technologies.
