THues: Natural dyes made out of tea waste

The unique proposition of T Hues is that, it is probably the only sustainable dye in the world today to offer a colour range of over 30 colours with a carbon footprint of less than 50 per cent in cotton and 45 per cent in nylon.

World over Sri Lanka is synonymous with “Ceylon Tea”. The two have been linked together since the birth of the tea industry in 1867. From a humble beginning as an alternative crop with the devastation of Coffee due to the Blight, Ceylon Tea has grown to be the Number 1 export commodity from Sri Lanka for over past 50 years. Over the years the tea Journey has been a colourful one and adding a new colour to this journey is “T Hues – Naturally Vibrant Natural Dye”

The T-Hues story began in Dynawash, an Industrial Laundry specialising in Garment Dying catering to Apparel Exporters supplying garments to the leading brands in the World. The collaboration between Dynawash and The Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (SLINTEC) saw the creation Natural Dye produced from tea waste from iced tea manufacturing process of Unilever. A classic example of collaboration between two companies, Unilever looking for sustainable method to dispose tea waste from iced tea manufacturing process and Dynawash looking for sustainable dying option in order to reduce the negative impact on the environment from fast fashion.

The unique proposition of T Hues is that, it is probably the only sustainable dye in the world today to offer a colour range of over 30 colours with a carbon footprint of less than 50 per cent in cotton and 45 per cent in nylon on a crewneck T-shirts verses a conventionally dyed similar T-shirts. At a time when global warming is very real and the plant is battling for survival where every little action matters, T Hues is a shining story to meet the aspirations of the global clothing brands journey towards sustainability under the ZDHC initiative.

This is the start of the T Hues story and a small step in the sustainable apparel story with many more colourful pages to be written in the future 

T Hues Story is not limited to use by global apparel brands from the developed world. T Hues is now available in India for use in apparel, textile, cosmetics and food colouring and is being sold by Dynawash’s Indian partner, Resource Dyechem.

Resource Dyechem is headquartered in Mumbai and manufacture specialty chemicals for textile and leather industry. Apart from this, the company is a sole distributor of reactive dyes of Ashahi and Pigments of Rakuto, from Japan, and disperse dyes from Setas of Turkey.