Team:SZU-China/Description
Description
Low cost blue jeans actually has a high cost attached to it. The traditional method in making distressed blue jeans consumes prodigious amounts of hazardous chemicals and water while dying, bleaching and fraying, posing a horrendous threat to the environment and public health, especially the workers’. To make it worse, many jeans factories with poor sewage disposal system dump the wast water directly into the river, among which the poisonous substrates can transport to and accumulate in places far away from their original source.
Indigo is the predominant dye used for endowing denim with its signature tone of blue, which can date back 6,000 years ago. However, chemically synthesized indigo indeed derives from an industrial scale of the toxic aniline and needs additional excess reducing agent (typically sodium dithionite) to be transformed into soluble leucoindigo for dying. Therefore, an eco-friendly sustainable scheme for producing the indigo with enduring high demand is of great urgency.
Fig. 1
And when it comes to the traditional method for worn-look or faded color of jeans, the use of sandblasting is notoriously blamed for the generation of fine dust, which is the culprit of works’ silicosis. Besides, the use of strong corrosive chemicals is also detrimental. Hence, an alternative for fraying is also of paramount importance.
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While brainstorming, we happened to see the documentary named “Der Preis der Blue-Jeans “. This film talks about how a group of environmentalists traced back the origin and life of a pair of jeans worth 9.9 Euro, during which the inside story of jeans industry was gradually revealed. Retailers keep forcing down the price for their own interests. And the manufacturers have no choice but to use cheap labor and not eco-friendly techniques for manufacturing, so as to meet sellers’ stringent demand and struggle to survive. And in this way, people usually neglect the rights and health condition of the workers and sacrifice the environment and future for short term profits.
After watching the documentary, we set out to interview a jeans washing factory in Zhong Shan for first-hand background research. The on-the-spot investigation did give us a shock, with the thick blue dust, pungent smell and nerve-racking noise from machine. And is heartbreaking seeing workers working endlessly like emotionless machines in that lethal condition.
As inhabitants of our single planet, we refuse dark blue and lifeless rivers, also jeans with sin. Thus, we determined to devote ourselves to the development of a sustainable scheme for the jeans manufacturing industry utilizing the method of synthetic biology.
Fig. 3 Machine covered with thick dirty dust (photographed by SZU-China)
Fig. 4 A worker abrading the jeans (photographed by SZU-China)
aim: an alternative to stone-washing or hand grinding for worn-look; to distress jeans by engraving images on the fabrics with lasers.
deficiency: manufacturers struggling from low prices offered by retailers and racking their brains for lowing down cost prizes are no supposed to afford the high price of the advanced machine.
aim: a more environmental strategy without horrible pollution
deficiency: limited plant resource and production; relatively high cost for extraction still relys on reductant for dyeing.
Aiming at the two most sticky problems in jeans processing, detrimental ways of synthesizing dye and fraying, we proposed two corresponding solutions based on synthetic biology.
As for dying, we expressed thermostable beta-glucosidase via recombinant E.coli to synthesize Gardenia Blue, a stable, environmental-friendly pigment with high dyeing efficiency. Most importantly, dying with Gardenia Blue circumvents the use of hazardous reducing agents. As for fraying, we used recombinant cellulase (endo-glucanase) as an alternative of sandblasting to hydrolyze surface cellulose and form the faded worn-look.
Besides, we designed hardware to adjust our products to jeans manufacturing process. And we created a BP neural network and other models to help manufacturers predict enzyme yields or adjust the number of raw materials added according to their set enzyme yield, so as to achieve the goal of obtaining the highest profit with the lowest cost.
In brief, our automatic green system can replace manual dyeing and fraying process, while reducing pollution and protecting the health of workers. And we endeavor to optimize industrial techniques for producing jeans without sin.
