10 Nov Our Water Footprint, Working Toward Sustainability
Water is the most precious natural resource on the earth. Without water, life would not exist as it is a prerequisite for all human and economic developments.
Although water is a renewable resource, it is also a finite one. Today’s water crisis is not an issue of scarcity, but of access. (https://www.water.org/)
Being a part of chemicals and dyestuffs industry, we feel we are responsible towards our water footprints. Water is a necessary resource for producing dyestuffs and colors. It is also a significant resource for apparel and textile manufacturers. It takes 2,000 liters of water to produce 1 kg of colored cotton T-shirts from farming to manufacturing. Therefore, everybody has to understand his role towards the safe and sustainable use of water.
How can a fashion brand and a manufacturer of fashion reduce their water footprint?
First of all, it is important to have a closer look at the manufacturer of the dyestuff. What does the manufacturer do to reduce the water usage and recycling their wastewater? They not only need to measure and reduce their water consumption but also think of innovative ways to treat wastewater and invest into efficient technology to recycle the regenerated water. In 2010, DyStar recovered and recycled over 1.7 cubic millions of water. This mainly included water recovered from the steam condensates, wastewater and equipment washings.
Furthermore, when these dyes are used in a dye house for fabric manufacturing, they have an equally bigger challenge to reduce their consumption and treat their wastewater for environmental protection.
There are several ways for a dye house to reduce water consumption:
- Optimized machinery loading
- Lowest possible liquor ratio
- Combined washing and dyeing process
- Optimized rinsing processes
- Save of rising bathes
- Compatible, level-dyeing for reliable dyeing
- High Right-First-Time performance (RFT)
But honestly, there is a lack of proper education and training in dyeing industry in this regard. Contact us if you need more advise how to reduce your water footprint in the fashion manufacturing process……..
We understand our role towards its safe and sustainable use. We recognize our responsibility to reduce our own water consumption and emissions and help our customers to reduce theirs as well.
Last year we undertook a company-wide exercise to look into our water emissions and ways to reduce our consumption during the manufacturing of our products. We continue to invest and research into developing best available processing technology to help our customers reduce their water consumption during processing.
Indeed that’s not the end! It’s a journey that we have started and we wish to go a long way in being truly sustainable and develop sustainable solutions. Because we believe, it is good for us, good for our customers and definitely good for our environment!!