Garments industry in Bangladesh

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By Sabbir.amt
How Garments industry polluting environment
•
•INTRODUCTION

Bangladesh is a leading garment and textile producing country. After 70s decade Bangladesh
started its tour of business. That’s a long history and also a glorious history to reach at that
position. now-a days Bangladesh is consider as the best three apparel and textile producing
country. We mainly export garment products in USA, United Kingdom, Germany and France.

Garments industry in Bangladesh

77
rate or flag this page

By Sabbir.amt
How Garments industry polluting environment

INTRODUCTION

Bangladesh is a leading garment and textile producing country. After 70s decade Bangladesh
started its tour of business. That’s a long history and also a glorious history to reach at that
position. now-a days Bangladesh is consider as the best three apparel and textile producing
country. We mainly export garment products in USA, United Kingdom, Germany and France.

Figure: Textile wastes are exposed in nature in a huge quantity.

The garment sector is contributing about ten million people directly or indirectly. About 76% of
total export income comes from this sector. For that reason it is important for our country. The
bank, insurance, communication, port, worker, employee all are depending on that sector.
 But this sector is creating much chemical waste. Which waste is very harmful for environment? In
that assignment I will try to focus about our garment industry. Created wastage by those
industries, about waste management, waste awareness, what is happening in waste
management in this

Sector and what should be done in this sector for waste management.

Actually, the garment industries are divided into three kinds. They are:

1. Woven garment industry

2. Knitted garment industry

3. Fully fashion garment industry

Those garment industries are based on same aim. But there aim is not same. There work
procedure is not same also.

But dying washing, printing those work's are related to all kind of garment industries. Specifically
those events of total procedures are creating chemical at a large amount.

Bangladesh Textile Mills

Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA) is the national trade organization representing Yarn,
Fabric Manufacturers and Textile Product Processors mills in Bangladesh under private sector. It
began its journey in 1983 with an initial membership of 22 mills with a specified list of objectives,
first and foremost being the promotion and protection of the trade, commerce and manufacturers
of Bangladesh in general and of the textile related trade in particular.

Currently BTMA has 810 members with 458 weaving mills, 222 spinning mills and 141 dyeing-
printing-finishing mills. Over US $ 3.3 billion (2.50 billion euros) has been invested in these mills
and about 3.50 million people are currently employed. BTMA fulfills 100 % of the domestic fabric
and yarn requirement, 50% of the cotton woven fabric requirement of export oriented garments
sub-sector and over 95% of the yarn and fabric requirement of export oriented knitwear sub-
sector.

WAST CREATING BY TEXTILES

Violating the environment conservation rule 1997 more than 7000 units of industries for textiles,
metals, chemicals, rubber, pharmaceuticals, cement, lather, pulp, paperboards, fertilizer, food
processing and petroleum refining in the city area are discharging 1.3 million cubic meter of
unrelated industrial affluence in the rivers.

Figure: Textile industries are exposing chemical waste in the water and polluting them

The Institute of Water Modeling (IWM), a governmental established trust has identified four
industrial clusters and many other small zones as the major pollutants of Buriganga-Turag Rivers.
The Turag River and its multiple tributaries receive the load from the Gazipur cluster. As it
reaches
Dhaka city it is joined by the Tongi khal. This carries discharge from the Tongi and Shavar
clusters. The influx of Turag-Tongi khal joins the Karnafuli River. The whole system is
subsequently called Buriganga. The Buriganga borders, Hazaribag cluster the home to tanning
industries.

Of these clusters the hydrologist identifies tanneries as the biggest polluters. Government
agencies do not have particular data on the number of units active in the clusters.

About 500 tanneries including 200 large units in Hazaribagh are discharging 4.75 million liters of
variety of extremely toxic wastage into the river. On the top of this 95 meretricious of solid and
hazardous wastage including trimmings of finished lather, sharing dust, hair, fleshing, trimming of
raw hides and skins are also dumped in area's open drains every year.

Figure: Here we see how the water is polluting by different ways, textile is one of them.

United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) notes that the chrome contributing
sludge and solid wastage, that generates by the tanneries at Hazaribagh is collected by Dhaka
City

Corporation and is dumped in the handfuls. This is shifting the pollution problem to the outskirts of
the city moreover; the chrome containing solid wastage of wet blue trimming and shavings is
often
Incinerated in the tanneries boiler oven, resulting in the release of hexavalant chrome containing
partials in the air. Moreover, the under ground area of tanneries since sludge containing heavy
metals, are not of disposed properly. Health expert claim such polluting agents have every
possibility creating cancerous disease.

Besides there are many small units on both sides of buriganga between Bangladesh-China
friendship bridge 1 and 2, mainly locate at Babu Bazar, Jinjira, Kaliganj , Postogola and Shympur.
There are small ship yards, dying units and small industries at this area that discharge
unthreaded washing and clinical wastes used batteries, plastic bottles and containers and other
discarded plastic materials and burnt oil into the river water. They also dump the useless solid
wastage of crushed materials into the river.

Pointing out the very low labels of dissolved oxygen along the Turag-Buriganga river system
which indicates the poor quality of water.

SM Mahbubur Rahman principle speciallist and head of water resource planning division of IWM
says, '' bio-degradable organic pollutant, expressed as BOD 5, load in the system is 17 times
higher than the allowable limit of three milligrams per litter.

Apart from high labels of BOD, other water quality parameters like ammonia.

Heavy metals such as

1. Aluminum (Al)
 2. Cadmium (Cd)

3. Lead (Pb)

4. Mercury (Hg)

Sulphate chloride and other have also been detected, “he says.

CHEMICAL'S USED IN TEXTILE

Everything around us is consisted with different kind of chemicals. There are a lot of chemicals.
We have a great need of chemicals everyday. Chemicals have good or bad utilization. Mostly we
use chemicals for good reasons. If we look to the industries chemicals is must be needed.
Suppose in a biscuit factory, we are producing orange flavor biscuits. So, for the orange flavor we
add orange essence. And the orange essences are made of chemicals. We need octyle
ethanoate to produce orange essences. So, we see chemistry is everywhere. We are bound by
the chemistry. We are helpless without the chemicals and chemistry.
In chemistry we have 111(Approximately) elements. The scientists were researched a lot,
experiment a lot. And then they give us many more chemicals. With different kind of chemicals
we do different kind of works. Everyday a lot of compounds are created. And we are trying to
utilize them properly.

Chemicals used in Textile Mills

In textile mills, they use different kinds of chemicals in different stages. There are different steps
in dyeing of cotton, silk, PVC, synthetic.

Dyes

Leveling agent

Salt

Multi-salt acid

Sharpener

Softener

Whitener

Fixers
Figure: Pi-chart about the materials used in textile industries

Scouring & bleaching

Per-oxide killing

Neutralization

Dyes chemical

Dyes

Neutralization

Finishing

Scouring

Leveling of dyes

Dyes

Wash

Neutralize

Finishing

For those steps industries are using chemicals. In every step they use different kind of chemicals.
Some of them are given below:
Detergent (Washing the fabric)

Scouring Agent (Removing iron from the fabric)

Caustic Soda (NaOH)

Hydrogen per-oxide

Per-oxide killer agent

Acid (Acetic acid, Formic acid)

Dyes

Leveling agent

Salt

Multi-salt acid

Sharpener

Softener

Whitener

Fixers

Flock binders

Stable bleaching powder

Here are some of the functional chemicals used in textile mills:

Adhesives; Anticreasing agents; Antifoaming agents; Antioxidants; Antishrinking agents; Antislip

agents, Antistats, Binders; Biocides; Bleaching agents; carriers; Chelating agents; Coning oils;
Corrosion inhibitors; Delustrants; Desizing agent
Dye assistants; Dye fixing agents; Dispersing agents; Emulsifiers; Finishing

agents; Flame retardants; Foaming aids; Fulling agents; Leveling agents; Lubricants; Mercerizing
assistants; Oil repellants; Oxidizing agents; Penetrants; Preservatives; Reducing agents;
Retarding agents; Scouring agents; Sequestrants; Sizing agents; Softeners; Soil repellents;
Solvents; Stripping agents; Thickeners; UV Absorbers; Water repellents; Wetting agents;
Whitening agents.

Details of some chemicals using in textile mills

Sodium Hexametaphosphate (SHMP)

POLLUTION IN GARMENT SECTOR

About 5000 garment industries are exist in Bangladesh. Not only that there are so many garment
related factories also exists to the garment factories. they are dying, printing, washing etc.

Waste from Bscic Industrial Area in Gazipur ends up in the Baimail Jheel and then flows into the
Turag turning water of both into an obnoxious deep purple liquid. The photo was taken at Baimail
Jheel. ( source: The Daily Star, 20 May 2009 )

Those garments textile and related factories are creating wastage but they are less conscious
about their waste management.

Sometime it is seen that dying industries are washing their cloths and other color matarials in the
river and open water sources which can create many problems to us and our environment.

The color are made from different chemicals. Which are not harmful always, but some time they
can creat hazardous problems both our environment and for our daily life.

Sanitation problem also observe in the textile industries. The garment releases their wastage in
river and in open space. That is not the problem that we are not agreeing to obey the rules and
regulation.

USED MATERIALS:

We know that the textile and garment industry produce their products mainly from solid materials.
The colors, dyes, fabrics, fibers, woven and non-woven materials are used in garment factories.

The rest or wastage are not arranged as it should be.

In the developed countries the wast are arranged in a systematic way. But our garment
industry

are throing their wast matarials in disorder. All the wast are throwing in one system. It should not
like that. Same kind of thing should throw in same category.
Our garments industries and textile industries are creating a huge number of CFC gas. CFC in full
Chloro-Floro-Carbon. Which is claimed for breaking the ozone layer which covers our whole earth
like protector. harmful rays can't entrer in earth for presence of Ozone layer around us. But the
materials we are using are creating CFC which can be a threat for us and for the world also.

We are using coloring materials

1. Solid Color

2. Ultra Color

3.Natural Color

There are also classification in those three options. Without natural color the other color is made
artificially. Those are always harmful if we failed to manage them.

ULTIMATE IMPACT'S

Now what can we see around us. The river water near Turag-Buriganga is totally black. This
water is impossible to use. The water is also having a bad smell which can be feel far from the
water.

Not only in Turag-Buriganga but also the nearby river which are situated near Dhaka. Condition is
not same but approximately same condition. The bad smell is busting around and people are
affecting by many disease. Some of which are creating cancerous disease.
We can say that the world is now corrupting for those problems. Environment is now approaching
to a dangerous way. In which place or environment we are living, it should become threat for us
one time.

About 500 tanneries including 200 large units in Hazaribagh are discharging 4.75 million liters of
variety of extremely toxic wastage into the river. On the top of this 95 meretricious of solid and
hazardous wastage including trimmings of finished lather, sharing dust, hair, fleshing, trimming of
raw hides and skins are also dumped in area's open drains every year.

Of these clusters the hydrologist identifies tanneries as the biggest polluters. Government
agencies do not have particular data on the number of units active in the clusters.

Bangladesh is a populated country. This is hard to find where there is no pollution. For that
reason we should manage the waste in such way that our people would not become the victim of
the side

effect of the chemical waste. But our textile industries are not thinking about those prospects.
They are just making the waste and dumping them in the open places.

For this reason we would have to suffer in the long run. But at that time suffering for clear drinking
water. We have to tolerate the bad smell of wastage.

Figure: My imagination about world for pollution. (source : google images )

The water color becoming dark black day by day. It is already out of control. Before it become a
problem & threat for us we should be conscious about our waste management.

Impact of Textile Chemicals

There is no doubt that the impact of industrialization on environment is far reaching and even
disturbing. The three basic requirements of human beings are food, clothing and shelter. Human
activities for these requirements more or less disturb the ecological balance.

The toxic effects of chemicals and physical agents on living organisms and their interactions with
the environment lead to phenomenon like acid rains, depletion of ozone layer and global worming
due to green house effect.

Ecology is the study of interactions between living organisms and their environment, which
includes atmospheres, water and pollutants.

The main raw materials used in the textile industry are the textile fibres, which are spun into
yarns, which, in turn, are woven into fabrics. They are further processed to get bleached, dyed /
printed or finished before introduced into the consumer market. The textile industry consumes
substantial volumes of water and chemicals for wet processing of textiles. The chemical reagents
used by the dye house are very diverse in chemical composition, ranging from inorganic
compounds and elements of polymers and organic products.

About 50% of the textile mills are using approximately 200-300 liters of water per Kg of fabric
produced while about 20% of the mills are using below 200 liters of water per kg of cloth
depending on the process sequence and water utilization practices adopted in the mill. Water
pollution by the textile mills in mainly attributable to various waste liquor coming out of the unit
operations in wet processing such as desizing, scouring, bleaching, mercerizing, dyeing, printing
and finishing.

Adverse effects of textile waste

The waste water discharged by textile mills is of highly alkaline nature, which adversely affects
the aquatic life.

The toxic chemicals like sulphides, chlorine, chrome and aniline dyes also affect aquatic life.

The textile water is discharged in the server line, which gets corroded due to presence of sulphur
dyes and sulphur compounds in the effluent.

The municipal sewage if exposed to acid and hydrogen/sulphides will result in rustication of
pipelines.

HOW TO MANAGE THE PROBLEM

There is no doubt that it is a severe problem. For our safety we have to take proper measure. We
are now less conscious about waste management. Such as in Thailand waste is managed in a
systematic way. They know what are organic & what are inorganic. They keep the waste in
different places and try to utilize the waste in a systematic way. In that country they store waste in
different category. At the first stage it is not possible for us to maintain different categories. But at
least we can make system of two categories.

Organic waste
Inorganic waste

In that way it will easy for us to utilize the waste in different ways. Organic waste can be used as
fertilizer and inorganic waste can be utilize by recycle them in systemic and scientific way.

v In bio-gas plant organic waste are used as raw material. We can use the organic compounds
as the producer of bio-gas plant.
v Paper waste can be recycled in new paper. Such waste paper will create new paper.

v Poly bags and its waste can be recycled.

v The unused fabrics can be used in making new yarn.

v Unused fiber can convert to fiber and of course to yarn and fabric.

v The liquid chemical waste should manage in a systematic and scientific way.

v The textile industries should give appoint chemist and specialist to manage the problem.

v Government should take proper step to enforce the laws in time and if there is no law they
should create new laws to protect our loved city and our country as well.

CONCLUSION:

We can suggest and imagine about the problems only. But work will be done by the textile
industries only. For that we need their agreement first. If they committed to follow this agenda
then it will possible to face the problem. Here the government can do many things. So it is time to
work individually and in group to face the problem.

The scientist should resource about this problem and they should give it a priority to this problem.

The leaders of the world should come forward to face the problem. This is time to get together to
control the problem before it go out of control.

Because the world is safe that means we are safe.

(THE END)