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