5. Conclusion

For more than half a century, there have been few notable developments in the synthetic dye families, and the textile industry has been unable to influence the major dye manufacturers to integrate the notion of ecology into their production methods and into the development of new finishing processes that would enable the creation of eco-responsible textile products. This transition has not been possible because, since the end of the 1980s, all players in the textile industry (finishers and dye manufacturers) have migrated to Asia, to countries where regulatory and legislative constraints relating to ecology were, and still are, virtually non-existent.

The relocation of the textile industry in Europe could be envisaged if we agree to rethink current textile dyeing and/or printing methods by moving towards the development of waterless finishing processes. A first...