The Use of Water in Textile Production Has Reduced by 90 Percent in The Last Decade

The use of water in textile production has reduced by 90 percent in the last decade due to use of modern technologies, according to a research by Brazilian Association of Textile and Clothing Industry (ABIT).

Since the 2000s, the use of water in textile production has decreased by 90 percent, i.e. if 100 litres of water was required to produce 1 kg of fabric earlier, it now needs only 10 litres of water, ABIT said in a statement.

The water discharged from the textile industry now undergoes modern wastewater treatments and then is re-used elsewhere in the factory, and is returned much cleaner to the atmosphere, ABIT said.

In the textile and clothing industry, the costs of water and electricity are very relevant. Hence, the industry has to adapt new production processes, and address economic and environmental issues. Industries which do not adapt these processes eventually break, Rafael Cervone, president of ABIT, says in the statement.

In order to make sustainability a business strategy for textile firms, ABIT has developed a certification, which demonstrates the compliance of the product to ethically, socially and environmentally sustainable way of production.

At present, the main available technologies for reducing use of water in the textile industry are dry clean, wastewater treatment, and treatment system of tributaries.

Dry cleaning process has become a benchmark in the global textile chemical industry. The process consists of dyeing cellulosic fibers with reactive dyes, which recycles the water baths and decreases the amount of salt and chemical feedstocks in the process without interfering with the quality of the final textile product.

In wastewater treatment, use of ultra filtration membranes allow increased capacity for water reuse and efficiency in treating wastewater, along with a significant reduction in turbidity.

A pioneer in the treatment system of tributaries is the reverse osmosis, which consists of treatment of water in effluent treatment plants of enterprises. After treatment, water is routed to the reverse osmosis plant, resulting in totally pure, demineralised water, which is mainly used in industrial kitchen, steam generation, etc.