diana bagnoli

portion of land close to Lavasport laundry, one of the main factories which produces denim

A farmer in front of the blue river that crosses her lands.
She told that in Tehuacan, it’s forbidden to cultivate and grow vegetables, as they would be toxic. The risk is a very hefty fine, especially if they are going to be sold in the city markets. She confessed to being threatened with being put in jail.

Blue-colored hands of a worker after a usual working day.

Clandestine denim enterprise in Tehuacan

Denim's shop in Tehuacan

Martin Barrios, environmental activist, reflected in the blue water, close to Lavasport laundry.
Tehuacán has more than a hundred industrial laundries, both legal and clandestine, and it plays an important role in the textile industry. Sadly it has now become famous for the color of its water, that’s blue, or better, blue denim. Rivers and irrigation canals at a certain time of day are tinted by electric blue, when the laundries discharge their waters after the “sand-blasting” process, because this is how jeans are fashionable now, "washed out".

Denim enterprise.

washing machine in one of the the laundries in San Lorenzo Teotipilco

water discharged after washing in a denim laundry in San Lorenzo Teotipilco, Puebla, Mexico

Clandestine denim enterprise in Tehuacan.

Lucia works since 35 years for a big denim enterprise in Tehuacan. Since two years she has got respiratory problems  and a cronical lung disease.

Martin Barrios, environmental activist, watch at the discharge canal of Lavasport laundry, one of the main factories who produces denim in Tehuacan.

Drainage canal, in San Diego Chalma, Puebla, Mexico.
At a certain time of the day the river becomes a white toxic foam and later blue, when the laundries finish their washing and discharge the water, without filters, in the Valsequillo river.

A farmer posing in his cornfields, crossed by a blue toxic water river. San Diego Chalma, Puebla.

Peasants’ house in San Diego Chalma. Animals have become their only form of sustenance because crops are considered toxic.

Portion of land close to Lavasport laundry, one of the main factories which produces denim

San Lorenzo Teotipilco, close to Tehuacan, where the largest number of industrial laundries is.