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One of the world’s most polluting industries is the textile-dyeing sector, which in China and other Asian nations releases trillions of liters of chemically tainted wastewater. But new waterless dyeing technologies, if adopted on a large scale, could sharply cut pollution from the clothing industry.

Each year, one global industry gulps down trillions of liters of fresh water, together with massive amounts of chemicals. The wastewater from that industry is then dumped, often untreated, into rivers that bring its toxic content to the sea, where it spreads around the globe.

The industry in question? The textile dyeing sector, whose colorful products belie the reality that it is an egregious polluter, especially in China, which by some estimates produces – and then discharges – roughly 40 percent of all dyeing chemicals worldwide.

Now, new waterless dyeing technologies are being developed and deployed that could help reduce the vast quantities of pollution generated by textile dyeing. In recent years, three companies have each developed a largely waterless dyeing technology. Two are American enterprises – AirDye and ColorZen – and the third is a Dutch company, DyeCoo, whose process is being used by Adidas, one of its partners.

Although the three processes are very different from each other, the results are much the same. The use of water is cut to near-zero, sharply diminishing pollution. The quantity of chemicals is drastically reduced, while faster dyeing cycles lead to a major drop in energy consumption.

Still, despite these benefits, major questions remain as to whether these new technologies will be able to turn the tide in the struggle to reduce pollution in the textile industry. Water has been used to dye fabric for centuries, and textile firms have generally been reluctant to embrace change. New waterless dyeing machines also are expensive to install and the technologies often can only be used with certain kinds of cloth, such as polyester.