It’s a common misconception that bottled water is cleaner and healthier for you than tap water. In some cases bottled water is cleaner, in others it’s far worse, and in about a quarter of the cases it’s exactly the same. The non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that a staggering 25 percent of bottled water comes from municipal sources—the very same sources that deliver water to your tap each day. With no information on the bottle itself and vague marketing slogans like bottled at the source (which source would that be?), consumers are left to a lot of guesswork.

In a recent article for SF Gate, water conservation expert Dr. Peter Gleick probed the requirements for bottled water labeling, arguing that the problem starts with how water is categorized.

Bottled water is currently considered a food product and, as such, falls under FDA regulation—meaning bottled water requires the same nutritional label as any other food. The difficulty with this classification, of course, is that we don’t need to know the fat or caloric content of water: It’s always zero, so nutritional data is completely irrelevant.

The facts consumers need about water—the water source, how it’s been treated and cleaned, and which minerals are present and at what levels—aren’t currently required for labeling. The iffy regulation process often leaves consumers confused about the cleanliness of bottled water and misled about the source. Until label requirements change, Gleick advises a buyer beware policy.

If you’re still drinking bottled water, what do you want to see on the label?

Welcome to the AirDye—Good for Water blog. AirDye is an innovative new technology that seeks to change the way the world dyes textiles. As an industry, textile manufacturing and dyeing is one of the most wasteful and environmentally damaging. At AirDye, we’ve created a technology to eliminate the need for water in the dyeing process: a step that currently drains the earth of 2.4 trillion gallons of water a year, an astonishingly high amount of which ends up polluting local water sources. In a commitment to change these harmful practices, and with the belief that through innovation and technology our industry can do better, we’re launching this blog on Earth Day.

greening the textile industry

First, we want to tell you a bit about what we’re doing to pioneer new, greener practices for the textile industry. As the name suggests, AirDye uses air to dye fabric, bypassing the liquid state of dye altogether. Here’s a basic breakdown of the technology: Instead of mixing dye with water and placing it on the surface of a fabric, our process transforms dye from a solid to a gas, eliminating the liquid state and therefore the need for water. When synthetic fabric is exposed to a certain temperature, the molecules in the fiber begin to expand. In this porous state, gaseous dye enters the space in between fibers and when fabric cools the dye is trapped in the fiber permanently.

Aside from the potentially trillions of gallons of water this process spares, the benefit to you, the consumer, is something we call “no rules wash.” Since the dye is actually a part of the fabric itself, rather than a layer that rests on top of it, color doesn’t fade and garments can last far beyond 100 washes. (Even pouring bleach on a shirt won’t damage the color.) An AirDye garment has a far longer life, which dramatically reduces disposability and promotes sustainability—after all, the most sustainable product is one you don’t have to replace.

pioneering social change

The implications of AirDye reach far beyond technology. Nearly a billion people go without access to clean, safe drinking water. With 4,700 people dying each day from a lack of potable water, we simply cannot, in good conscience, continue to waste trillions of gallons of water dyeing fabric. Beyond preserving precious resources, dyeing textiles without water expands opportunity for entirely new industries in developing nations that don’t have the water for traditional textile production.

join the conversation

In the days and weeks to come, we’ll be blogging about a wide range of topics, from water scarcity to eco-fashion. At AirDye, we believe vigorous debate and open exchange of ideas always leads to smarter practices. We hope you’ll join the conversation. Happy Earth Day.