Fabric Coloring using Cuscuta as A Form of Environmental Sustainability

Abstract

Synthetic dye liquid waste causes various problems, one of them is environmental pollution. There are 5 rivers in Pekalongan in which all are black due to the contamination of synthetic dye liquid waste from the batik industry. The five rivers contain Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) 230 mg/L at the upstream and 157 mg/L at the downstream, while the maximum COD content should be only 50 mg/L. The use of natural dye in batik production alters the use of synthetic dyes and reduce its hazards. Natural dyes, in general, can be extracted from plant parts such as roots, stems, leaves, bark and flowers to be used as an alternative to batik dyeing. The sustainability problem arises when these plants are continuously used. Weeds can be used as an alternative for natural dyes. Weeds are plants that are parasite for other plants, therefore the use of weeds as natural dye can help eradicate them from the main crop. This research was conducted by experimenting the weed extraction on cotton cloth. Furthermore, the dyeing was tested for its color direction using a color catalog. The purpose of this study was to examine the direction of color produced by cuscuta with vinegar mordant.