Reply #141: Not true. They're still cleaning up the mess from dyes.

[knitter4democracy]

Tanning leather and dying fabrics (usually wool in Europe) take very strong chemicals that stick around for a long time. Dyers used to just dump their dye baths on the ground when done, and a lot of the more toxic compounds are still in the ground there. Certain dyes have since been banned in Europe because of it.

In the manufacture of cloth after the Industrial Revolution, the pollution started getting bad from the engines running the machines. At first, they used water power, and that was used for a long time. Then boilers became safer to use, and coal-fired boilers were used to provide the energy, which caused pollution.

It's not like there wasn't a problem long before the I.R., though. Heck, they've found the dyebaths on Greek islands from thousands of years ago and found the chemicals still in the soil. In some dyes, arsenic was used as part of the process, and that's stuck around in the soil since.