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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
portion of land close to Lavasport laundry, one of the main factories which produces denim
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
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.
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
Blue-colored hands of a worker after a usual working day.
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
Clandestine denim enterprise in Tehuacan
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
Denim's shop in Tehuacan
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
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".
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
Denim enterprise.
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
washing machine in one of the the laundries in San Lorenzo Teotipilco
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
water discharged after washing in a denim laundry in San Lorenzo Teotipilco, Puebla, Mexico
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
Clandestine denim enterprise in Tehuacan.
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
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.
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
Martin Barrios, environmental activist, watch at the discharge canal of Lavasport laundry, one of the main factories who produces denim in Tehuacan.
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
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.
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
A farmer posing in his cornfields, crossed by a blue toxic water river. San Diego Chalma, Puebla.
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
Peasants’ house in San Diego Chalma. Animals have become their only form of sustenance because crops are considered toxic.
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
Portion of land close to Lavasport laundry, one of the main factories which produces denim
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© 2019 Diana Bagnoli
San Lorenzo Teotipilco, close to Tehuacan, where the largest number of industrial laundries is.
Public Story
BLUE TOXIC WATER
Credits:
diana bagnoli
Date of Work: 10/15/17 - 01/01/18
Updated: 04/23/18
TEHUACAN, THE CITY OF THE BLUE TOXIC WATER
Factories in Tehuacán, Mexico, produce distressed denim for big-name US brands like Levi’s, Guess, and Gap. But, say local activists, some also produce harmful side effects - contaminating the water supply and sterilising the earth.
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. It is the hour when the laundry discharge their waters after the “sand-blasting” process, because this is how jeans are fashionable now, "washed out".
In the rural areas, now, it’s forbidden to cultivate and grow up vegetables, as they would be toxics. The risk is a very hefty fine, especially if they are going to be sold in the city markets. Some farmers even confessed that they were threatened with being put in jail.
Although in 2011 Greenpeace launched the "Detox my fashion" campaign and published the report Hilos Toxicos, referring precisely to the contamination in Mexico, in Tehuacán nothing has changed. The laundries, connected to the big brands, continue to discharge the residual water in the rivers, there isn’t yet a purifier and the farmers are getting even poorer.
In addition to the environment, workers are also suffering. Before being washed, the trousers are, in fact, treated with chemical agents. Lucia for example, who has worked for 35 years for a big denim company, is now suffering from a chronic lung disease and, she reveals, “The safety rules are applied only for a few days, when there’s outside surveillance, the rest of the time they want us to work without masks and gloves”.
