An enormous amount of food is wasted globally. Just in the U.S. around 40% of all food is thrown away. Imagine walking out of a grocery store with a couple bags and dropping half of them in the parking lot and just leaving them there. With all the food security issues and poverty systemic in society one would think we could figure this out. While obsessing over food issues and discovering a love for natural dyes I found a wonderful and obvious connection. Making dye from food waste.
I cook a lot at home and I eat a lot of vegetables. But I am also guilty of letting food go bad in the fridge. Recently I cleaned out mine and a friends fridge, there was plenty in there to get creative with. Also as I cooked this last quarter I collected my waste and put it in jars or stored them in my freezer to make dye baths with. This post is a couple of highlights through my multitudes of food waste pigment experimentation’s… there were a lot of fails and some fun surprises along the way.
ONION:
Onions are a staple in all of my meals. I collected mostly yellow skins. I am still collecting red skins, as they can make an awesome green color if you get enough. Considering green is one of the hardest colors to achieve in natural dyes and my personal favorite obviously I am intrigued. I have recently began reaching out to local grocery stores produce departments about picking up their onion peels. So far I have gotten two large bags from Jays Produce Stand. Thank you Jay!
CITRUS: Orange and lemon peels
At first I didn’t think I was gonna get anything substantial from this dye bath. But after leaving the wool yarn, antique fabric and linen in this dye bath for a couple of days I was surprised by the results! Not sure if I would make this specific dye again, but it was important to see what my orange peels could do. I think they would serve better in an organic pesticide. If you have questions on that feel free to comment and ask.
COFFEE:
This was made with already used coffee grounds, I dried them out after I made my every morning, can’t live without, pour over coffee and stored the dried, used coffee grounds in a jar to use for dye later. Make sure to lay the wet coffee grounds out or expect a lot of mold.
BEETS:
This was my bad. I forgot about a couple of beets in one of my drawers in a paper bag, when I found them they were drying up and not looking quite edible. I used them to make this dye and have also used just used the water from boiling beets as a dye bath. I hadn’t read great reviews about beet pigment but I think there is a lot of possibility.
The finished results are much lighter, but still wonderful.
It is important to note with all of these projects that I would possibly be getting much deeper, vibrant colors if I was using organic high quality fibers. But for this study I am up-cycling everything.