shah@banglachemical.com
Post on 28-Feb-2021
3 Views
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
FROM EDEN BUILDING TO MOTIJHEEL
https://dailyasianage.com/news/256007/cost-of-water-and-cost-of-garment
Published: 01:52 AM, 28 February 2021
Cost of Water and cost of Garment M S Siddiqui
It is said that Textile industries has legs and walk to low cost production area of the world.
Therefore, textile manufacturer use to move to countries having less environmental regulations
and compliances. The low cost of textile is low because of low environmental cost and the host
countries use to give priority to millions of job for poor and non-technical women and men.
Garments and Textile have many hidden impact on our natural resources and environment. The
most significant impacts being on use intensity of water resources, chemical use including toxic
chemicals, waste water discharges and lack of treatment processes etc.
Textile manufacturing is amongst the largest industrial users of water. The water consumption
per kilogram of manufactured textile varies between 5- 500 litres, depending on fibre type; and
applied techniques and technologies. Water usage varies widely across the industry ranging on
average from between 50 and 200 tonnes per tonne of fabric, For example, the average jeans pent
that weighs 1kg, it takes 250 litres of water to wash. According to a study of the International
Finance Corporation (IFC), every year, 1,500 billion litres of water is used to dye and wash the
cotton and clothes for the garment industry.
This amount of water is enough to fill up the demand of 8 lakh people for a whole year. All these
are precious sweet water pumpted out from underground. The WASA sell per 1000 litre of
water at subsidized rate of Tk10. Even at this rate, the current market price of 1,500 billion litres
of groundwater is about Tk1500 billion orabout $2 billion. It does not real or future price of
water.
Bangladesh historically believed to have much water. Due to dam in upstream countries and
excess use of water have changes the belief of abundant water. Bangladesh is now facing a crisis
of shortage and useable water. Water scarcity is likely to be a major challenge for most of the
region due to increased water demand and lack of good water management.
One study revealed that the demand for water at Textile sector will be increased by 270'3 %
compared to 2014 creating water demand gap between 2.495 to 5.282 BCM per year. There is
also higher future domestic and agricultural water demands that have a higher priority than
industrial water, means that there is a higher risk of water shortage to the textile industry by 2030
and higher costs of water abstraction.
Another challenge is the increasing risk of quality of water. Textile and other industries are
polluting the surface water with disposal of un-treated used water. According to a study, out of
61% of textile units equipped with ETPs, only 29% were found to be compliant and most of
them are either poorly designed or operated.
Responsible Source Initiative (RSI), an association of 'responsible' buyers assessments revealed
that many textile mills in Bangladesh estimate total water, energy, and chemical consumption
based on capacity of pumps and machines. These factories do not know actual total resource use
in practice, or the specific resource consumption of different areas in the factory or of major
pieces of equipment.
Textile wastewater discharge has brought about a declining quality of surface water bodies
around the industrial clusters. The environmental impacts of textile and garment manufacturing
process are highly localised around some cities. The location of production facilities in major
urban areas that these facilities are adjacent to houses, schools, other businesses and community
facilities.
The communities surrounding these facilities are significantly impacted in terms of health,
quality of life, and in many cases, impacts on livelihoods from farming and fishing. There are
significant inefficiencies with these processes in terms of water use, chemical use and waste
water treatment. also an estimated 15% of production dyes are lost during the manufacturing
process.
RSI estimates conservatively that water leaks account for up to 0.2 to 0.4 percent of water use, or
0.35 to 1.2 tons per ton of fabric at factories using water at levels similar to those they visited.
Water is wasted when hoses or cooling water streams are left running even after machinery is
shut down, after cleaning is completed, and while cleaning is in progress.
RSI estimates conservatively that water leaks account for up to 0.2 to 0.4 percent of water use, or
0.35 to 1.2 tons per ton of fabric at factories using water at levels similar to those we visited. The
savings from eliminating water leaks could be higher, judging from the relevant literature. At
many of the factories, water is wasted when hoses or cooling water streams are left running even
after machinery is shut down, after cleaning is completed, and while cleaning is in progress.
In a textile mill, a lot of water is used to cool hot machines without coming into direct contact
with the dyes or other chemicals. This "non-contact" cooling water should always be recycled.
After its initial use, it is still clean and high in temperature, making it beneficial in processes
such as desizing, scouring, washing, or rinsing. Furthermore, discharging so much hot water
stresses the wastewater treatment system, lowering its efficiency.
Study find that reusing cooling water used to reduce the temperature of dyeing baths can save
huge water.
Factories are either not reusing this water or using it in cold water processes where the heat is
wasted. To use the warmed-up cooling water, factories can use an insulated hot water tank to
collect and store water and then recycle this warm water either into the dyeing process or as
boiler feed water. Costs are estimated to be modest, and return on investment is less than four
months saving from proper use of water and heat.
All the dyed fabric must be rinsed with clean water many times to remove unabsorbed dye. The
initial rinses are highly colour, later washes are low in both colour and chemicals. At present
practice, all rinse water is discharged for effluent treatment, but the last few rinses can be reused
in processes that do not require high quality water. Individual factories may be designed for re-
use of water.
The proven practice of textile industries in other countries set to (1) re-use steam and non-contact
cooling water, for instance from singeing, air compressors and pre-shrink systems if the site has
these, (2) re-use of discharge water from different processes, for example from bleaching
and mercerisation processes, when applicable, (3) re-use water from ETP discharge water for
flushing in lavatories.
This is especially relevant at garment units. In a garment unit, water usage for personnel
constitutes about 60% of the water usage. Further, flushing in toilets constitutes about 80% of
domestic water usage. Hence, in almost all cases, a garment unit can use the ETP treated water
for meeting their flushing requirement in the toilets.
Steam is widely use in textile and garment industries and transported to many locations and
equipment across a factory, and heat loss can be considerable. A well-insulated steam system has
about a 90 percent reduction in heat loss compared to a factory with un-insulated pipes, valves,
and fittings.A reduction in the amount of water used in a factory will reduce the cost for water as
well as for wastewater treatment.
The textile industries should go for water efficiency, water pollution prevention, and wastewater.
The purpose of water efficiency is to ensure that only the necessary amount of water is used in
the factory, reducing the need for wastewater treatment as well as energy and water costs. The
areas of water pollution prevention and wastewater aim to reduce negative health and
environmental impacts from chemicals used in the production processes.
Moreover, Bangladesh uses 250 litres of water whereas the global standard is 60 to 70 litres for a
single pair of jeans weighing 1kg. That is four times less than what we use. Experts say this use
of water can be further reduced to 13.5 litres. In Bangladesh, where factories pump and treat
their own water prior to use, reductions in water use lead to savings in both energy and chemical
costs.
The factories should have data of water withdrawn and usage of water. Data management should
be an implemented part of the business plan. Transparency and dialogue with shareholders,
buyers, suppliers and sub-contractors should be a natural part of the process. The textile and
apparel sector is described as a 'buyer-driven chain', where the driving force of the supply chain
is the major brands and retailers.
They determine what is produced, where and at what price. Annual reduction in water
withdrawal should be analysed and shared with buyers, shareholders and subcontractors.In this
buyer driven market the responsible buyers switch to low cost location of garments and hardly
consider the cost of water and other natural resources. These garment maker countries don't care
about own natural resources.
The end garment buyers in western world continuously make noise about workplace safety,
labour rights and environment. But are they ready to pay actual cost of garments including actual
cost of water?Bangladesh may consider asking for appropriate price of garments and go for
efficient use of water. It may also consider switching to other products to replace garments as
export products as early as possible to save the country from acute shortage of water.
The writer is a legal economist.
E-mail: mssiddiqui2035@gmail.com
top related