Nike ColorDry adds water-free dyed fabric to sustainable materials menu | Guardian Sustainable Business

This is really awesome. We apparently use approx 30 L of water to impart color onto one shirt. That’s a lot of water which could be used for other purposes! (5.8 Trillion L if we take The Guardian’s Estimate.) The new process that Nike’s pioneered here to dye shirts is to use supercritical CO2, which we already use extensively (the thing I know it’s used for is to decaffeinate coffee.)

Not only are we saving water, but we’re likely preventing all that 5.8 T Liters from being polluted with dyes! Dyes haven’t been the easiest materials to handle… at least that was the case historically. Perhaps the newest generation of dyes are less toxic, etc. But hey – let’s hope that they won’t get into the water!

Through sustainable innovations in manufacturing, the menu is growing for Nike designers with the recent announcement of Nike ColorDry technology, a process that eliminates the use of water from fabric dyeing.

You begin to understand the potential of ColorDry technology when you consider it takes an estimated 30 liters of water to dye a single t-shirt using traditional methods. Take that to a global scale and you’re looking at an estimated 5.8 trillion liters of water used by the apparel industry each year to dye fabric.

ColorDry technology eliminates water by using heat and pressure to convert liquid CO2 to supercritical fluid carbon dioxide, or “SCF” CO2, which then permeates and carries the dye into the fabric.

Not only does ColorDry eliminate water from fabric dyeing, it also reduces energy consumption by around 60% compared to traditional dyeing, eliminates the use of process chemicals, and uses nearly 100% of dye in the process, practically removing the potential for wastewater pollution.

via Nike ColorDry adds water-free dyed fabric to sustainable materials menu | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional.

On the uniqueness of Snowflakes

From “It’s Okay to be Smart”

Hell hath no fury

Like Gautam scorned. Especially when the route I’m planning on taking for a long run has some stupid construction going on, and rerouting means adding a few extra miles. Not cool.

I was planning on running 16 today. Ended up running about 13.5 and walking about 3. Took it really slow, though. It was nice and sunny… though a little windier than I would have liked. Wearing a light jacket was a good idea.

I need to start remembering to carry some kind of nutrition in addition to water to fuel me through the last few miles. I am pretty sure that if I start well-hydrated, I can do 13 miles on not-too-much water (no more than 6 oz in 50 deg weather; probably 12-15 oz in 70 deg weather) but I really start feeling the depletion in the muscles at that point. Perhaps a granola bar or some of that GU stuff is in order.