
In a small New York City apartment in 2013, Winona Quigley bent over pots of boiling dye soup, the splats of colorful residue making sure she could never see her security deposit. Bits of pomegranate peel and chopped madder root littered the counter space as she dipped swatch after swatch into the dye, her fingertips turning red and orange in the process.
Quigley creates dye baths with ancient textile dyeing methods, such as boiling food waste, and other naturally sourced materials such as insect scales and fungi. After testing countless batches, she would dye entire yards of fabric and incorporate them into projects for her fashion design major at Parsons School of Design in New York City. His soft colors and unusual methods did not make his professors nervous, but he was fascinated. Natural dyes became his life.
Like most people in fashion, he was initially drawn to the field by its charm. But when she started interning in fashion houses the glamor quickly disintegrated. The wasteful working conditions he observed, and the tragedy of 2013 The Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Bangladesh, quickly leads him to a moral crossroads: the work he loves is creating environmental and humanitarian crises.
That’s when he told himself that he had to find a way to work in fashion without making things worse for people and the planet. He remembers thinking, “When you’re in fashion, not conforming to the problem means finding new solutions that don’t create more problems.”
That mission will be the basis of his company, Green Matters Dye. As one of the largest natural dye houses in the United States, Green Matters is leading the way in upending an industry long dominated by synthetic chemicals, according to this 2019 report from Research and Markets. Eventually, Quigley wants to make natural dyes efficient and produce them on a large scale, although now he’s asking for less. Green Matters has one facility, with five large industrial dye bins and six people. On the contrary, one of the biggest The US synthetic dye companies, The Chemours Company, have six productions labs around the world and working 6,400 people — 1,000 times more than Green Matters.
Quigley acknowledges the unique challenges that come with his work, including supply and efficiency issues, but has plans to expand the business to make it easier.
Currently, the natural dye industry as a whole can only meet about 1% of the world’s demand, with a total of approx. 10,000 tons of dye per year. If Green Matters grows, Quigley believes he may have limitations in his production due to lack of dye and water supply.
Even with these caveats, the cries for change in the industry have become alarming. The fashion industry is under public scrutiny environmental abuse, production 92 million tons of solid waste every year. This makes it the second worst polluter of water use in 2019, according to Global Wellness Trends Report. On top of that, waste is often burned, releasing microplastics into the environment and Contributed of greenhouse gas emissions.
A large part of fashion’s environmental impact comes from fabric dyeing, which has a history of highly damaging practices. Today, the industry uses some 79 trillion liters of water, which is often dumped into the environment in developing countries as it contains toxic materials. In contrast, Green Matters uses rainwater to make their dye and creates biodegradable waste.
Waste can break down in the environment becausenatural dyes created using plants, insects and minerals. Before 1856, all dyes from natural sources. A wide variety of materials have been used across cultures to create a vivid color palette, backm the indigo plant for deep blue to madder root for fiery orange.

A piece of fabric that Quigley experimented with in the studio, broken into different colors. [Credit: Virginia Pollock]
The transition came in the early years of IIndustrial revolution with the introduction of petroleum-based synthetic dyes which can be done cheaper and faster than natural dyes. The growth of the synthetic dye industry quickly outstripped any bureaucratic regulation, he saids Renzo Shamey, a textile chemist and color scientist at North Carolina State University.
The lack of regulation means that companies can pollute a lot of water and dump it back around, especially in developing regions like Bangladesh and India. “Some companies are terrible in terms of their type of applications and the way they control their processes,” Shamey said.
Even with that history, Shamey isn’t convinced that natural dyes are the way forward. He noticed that regulations of synthetic dyes is stricter now, at least in developed countries, and the change will require a drastic increase in the cultivation of dye plants such as indigo and marigold. This, he thinks, can only exchange one form of bad use for another.
Fortunately for Green Matters, its home in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania has a way to avoid some of those sourcing worries. The province is one of the largest agricultural area in the Northeast, so Quigley could go to local farmers to increase the supply.
Recently, he went to neighboring farms and asked for onion skins. “It sounds a little crazy, but we thought we’d just show up at the farm and be like ‘Can I please sweep your floor for skins.'” says.
This tactic has been rewarded with a larger scale Green Matters partnership with the food giant Chipotle. Pennsylvania stores are now cleaning and saving their avocado pits to send to Green Matters, and the pits are being used to create a low-waste clothing campaign sold by the food giant.

A small batch testing site at Green Matters, where they can test new dyes on a smaller scale before they are approved for production. [Credit: Virginia Pollock]
In addition to the extraction of raw materials, there is the issue of water use. Currently, almost all dyes use water. A common complaint from critics of natural dyes is the low efficiency of staining textiles, which means they need more water than synthetic dyes to get a clear crop, he said. Parikshit Goswami, who studied textiles at the University of Huddersfield in England.
Even if there is contrary to research stating that some natural dyes can reduce water use by up to 50 times, others use more water. Goswami says it is a misconception that natural dyes are better for the environment than synthetic dyes.
“Natural does not mean good, from environmental or other perspectives,” he said. People should evaluate their choice of dye based on the parameters of how they will use the fabric. Parameters include things like efficiency and longevity. For example, if you are making a dye for a waterproof fabric like camping gear, you want it to have different characteristics than a dye that would be used on a cotton t-shirt.
And across the board, if you’re going to make a dye, it should have minimal waste, minimal environmental impact and maximum wearability for the intended purpose, he said. So if a natural dye hits all those categories, and works better for the user, he says that’s the true test of its value.
Green Matters tries to maximize all parameters by specifically talking to its partners to find out their needs for a fabric. They teach each buyer how to wash their clothes, and which dyes work best in each situation. For example, for fleshy pink clothes made from avocado pits, Quigley warns buyers that the color can change to a tan color with too much washing.
Green Matters has developed and tested many different natural sources for their dyes. It reduced their catalog to 12 different categories, offering only colors that provide whatever the client needs. For example, if the client needs a deep black color, Quigley is quick to tell them that natural dyes don’t always deliver and that they want to turn elsewhere.

Quigley wears his everyday work clothes, dyed in-house with indigo, his favorite color from the portfolio. [Credit: Green Matters]
Looking back, Quigley marvels at how much of his life was colored by business interactions like these. She once thought she would be a marine biologist by day and a fashion designer by night. But now, you can find him in the factory most days, coordinating work with clients, running batches or testing new materials for fast dyeing. He is very dedicated to his work, no matter how different it is from what he previously thought he would do.
However, he said, in some ways, his youngest is not so far off. She now combines her love of the natural world with her love of fashion. He still keeps his promise to the girl who loves the world and the art that adorns its creations.