Turning the Blue Jean-Dyeing Process Green

Making blue jeans is a dirty business. UGA has a solution to clean it up.

Dyeing blue jeans is one of the top sources of pollution from the fashion industry.

That’s why University of Georgia researchers Sergiy Minko, Suraj Sharma and Smriti Rai developed a new indigo dyeing technology that reduces water usage and eliminates the toxic chemicals that make dyeing jeans so environmentally damaging.

The technology also streamlines the process and secures more color than traditional methods. Best of all, the more sustainable process keeps the same thickness and flexibility as your favorite pair of jeans.

Denim and jeans manufacturing are a big market, so even small changes in the industry could have huge impacts.”
Sergiy Minko, UGA’s Georgia Power Professor of Fiber and Polymer Science

Image of a stack of folded blue jeans in various shades of blue.

“If you want to bring something new to market, you need to be open-minded,” said Minko, one of the researcher behind the new technology and Georgia Power Professor of Fiber and Polymer Science in UGA’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences. “You need to be creative. People just think, ‘Make it faster, make it cheaper to get a higher profit,’ but there is a big component of creativity in making new products.”

That’s one of the reasons Minko partnered with David Sasso, CEO of Athens, Georgia-based Genesis AdvanceTech Engineering. A textile industry veteran, Sasso has been involved in everything from converting fibers into yarn to making apparel and working with brands and retailers. When he learned of Minko and his colleagues’ work, he started thinking of ways to scale up and eventually commercialize the technology.

“This technology could fundamentally change the way we dye fabrics and yarns,” Sasso said.

Sasso’s company licensed the new dyeing technology in 2023. Taking any technology from the lab to market is tough, but Sasso is confident there’s market interest in making jeans more sustainable. And this technology might be a gamechanger in affordably achieving that goal.

“Denim and jeans manufacturing are a big market, so even small changes in the industry could have huge impacts,” Minko said. “There are populations that are looking for products that are made in environmentally friendly ways. And as regulations become tougher, the industry will have to adapt.”