Mihika Bhagat
Tanush Tulaskar
Omkar Vishwakarma
Dheer Padhiar
Overview
Measuring thousands of tons, discarded clothes and production waste are regularly shipped to developing countries like India. India is also one of the largest producers and exporter of textiles in the world. Not just are we producing waste in huge quantities, we are also accountable for the bulk of this world’s textile waste.
Goals
To promote recycling textile waste
Promoting the use of products made by textile waste.
To understand the affordability, quality and the scales of different Indian products made by textile waste
To make people aware of the problems
Problems and Importance
The fashion industry is producing nearly a billion garments every year
After just 3-5 wears, 60% of the clothes we discard are being landfilled
It takes 2,700 liters of water to make a single T-shirt
The chemical dyeing of clothes accounts for 20% of the globe’s industrial waste water
The fashion industry emits more greenhouse gases than shipping and aviation together
Our Questions
How has textile waste contributed to air Pollution
How has textile waste contributed to water Pollution
How has textile waste contributed to land Pollution
Ahimsa Silk
Pollution
Air Pollution
Air Pollution caused by the textile industry is also a major cause of concern. Boilers, thermo pack, and diesel generators produce pollutants that are released into the air.
According to some studies, the apparel industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions and is the second largest industrial polluter. Specifically, air pollutants produced by the textile industry include:
- Nitrous oxides and Sulphur dioxide produced in the energy production stages
- Volatile organic components (VOCs) produced in coating, curing, drying, waste water treatment and chemical storage .
- Aniline vapors, carrier Hydrogen sulphide, chlorine and chlorine dioxide produced in dyeing and bleaching stages.
As textiles move through the production process, numerous life-threatening pollutants left untreated can contaminate the air.
Carbon monoxide is released from factory sizing operations. Bleaching operations release chlorine dioxide, and fabric printing releases hydrocarbons and ammonia.
Fabric-finishing operations can release formaldehyde into the air. These toxic vapors would remain suspended in the air and be carried by the wind to pollute other areas.
Generally, there’s very little data on air emissions in the textile industry since it is difficult to sample, test and quantify air pollution in audits. Air pollution has many side effects and is probably the worst form of pollution for the environment.
Global health has also been greatly affected by the start of industrialization.
Green House Gas:
Effects Textile production produces 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse gases every year. Synthetic fibers such as polyesters are known to emit more greenhouse gases than natural fibers, as they have a greater carbon footprint.
Effects Textile production produces 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse gases every year. Synthetic fibers such as polyesters are known to emit more greenhouse gases than natural fibers, as they have a greater carbon footprint.
The consequences of the wet treatment process on fabrics during the process, large quantities of fossil fuels are consumed. This ultimately leads to acidification, depletion of natural resources, and global warming. While synthetic fibers like polyester have less impact on water and soil than cultivated materials like cotton, they emit more greenhouse gases per kilogram. A polyester shirt has more than twice the carbon footprint of a cotton shirt (5.5kg versus 2.1kg or 12.1 pounds versus 4.6 pounds). Textile polyester production emitted around 706 billion kg (1.5 trillion pounds) of greenhouse gases, the equivalent of annual emissions from 185 coal-fired power plants.
Solid Waste Pollution
Furthermore, the waste produced ends up in water bodies, causing environmental problems. Some of the pollutants that end up in landfills include fiber debris, trimmings, and packaging waste produced in the preparation of the fibers.
The primary residual residues generated by the textile industry are not dangerous. These include fabric and yarn waste, off-specification yarn and fabric and packaging waste.
Results indicated all the metals like Chromium, Iron, Manganese, Copper, Lead, and Cadmium were present in amounts larger than that prescribed as safe by the World Health Organization (WHO). They can cause many problems in living beings. Examples of non-toxic solid waste would be all packaging, fabric scraps, parts of the machine to be replaced, spools, etc.
These are not immediately dangerous to the environment or us and can be recycled to avoid future ecological damage. However, toxic or hazardous wastes, such as bleach , cause immediate harm to us and the environment .
Most solid waste is emitted during fiber preparation, yarn spinning , weaving, knitting, etc. All of these except bleaching produce pollutants such as fiber packaging and waste, fabric waste and scrap, and can be treated with innovative recycling.
In many countries, this fabric waste is recycled and used to create eco-friendly liquid effluents launched via way of means of the fabric enterprise are the maximum stressful region of concern. This is due to the fact the poisonous fabric launched via liquid waste is substantial in quantity. It includes chemical substances inclusive of formaldehyde (HCHO), chlorine, and heavy metals. Besides, it's miles disposed into water our bodies that attain a long way away regions and is fed on via way of means of a massive variety of human beings for ingesting or for each day sports.
Ahimsa Silk
Use Ahimsa Silk, a process that allows a silkworm to go through metamorphosis, and then the layer of shed skin is processed to obtain silk. For general textile, in this process around 6,660 silkworms are killed to obtain silk.
This process includes a long process of boiling and burning to process the silk . The carbon dioxide released from this process has started to increase along with the demand.
Every year around 20 million kilograms of silk are sold in a year , over 10 billion silkworms are killed every year. This in turn also emits an extreme amount of carbon dioxide as well as other greenhouse gases.
Organisations and steps by others
- Chindi, Doodlage, Gem Enviro Management and Skrap
Circular Design Challenge (Dia Mirza)
Chindi
They have a common thread collection and a canvas collection. The canvas collection includes Triangle pouch, Yoga bag and Toiletry Kit and the common thread collection includes lotus bag, messenger, daily, batua and hold-alls. Their employees and working staffs are grandmothers and females from villages.
To divert fabric waste from landfills and incinerators, they're participating with brands, producers and craftspeople. Together, they're seeking to ask the urgent questions, however they're labouring even more difficult to discover the right, sustainable answers. They endeavour to shut each of our loops and flip each line right into a circumference. Fashion, they believe, deserves our desire while it's made responsibly. They maintain this concept firmly in thoughts while developing their traces of products.
Their method has a process of Collection & sorting moving toward Recycling and then towards designing and handcrafting. In partnership with a recycling facility in India, they collect, sort and segregate textile waste. Sorting by colour helps ensure they use no chemical dyes. The waste is then pulped and re-spun into high-quality yarn through a process that eliminates the use of excess water or chemicals. They work with designers and craftswomen from various disciplines to create products that combine ethics and aesthetics.
Doodlage
They at Doodlage, Upcycle factory waste into short limited edition collections. Recycle post customer waste and post cutting scraps into new fabric to create season-less well finished clothes made for longevity. What they waste is segregated and transformed into accessories, soft furnishing merchandise and paper to make their packaging or stationery merchandise. All their pieces and fabrics are made with ethical manufacturing units and their packaging is designed to be plastic free.
To improve manufacturing of fabric and agriculture to be able to increase employment throughout industrialization and generate goods at most inexpensive have to ive most desirable costs for the rest of the world, they stopped accounting for the natural sources and careless disposal of hazardous waste. This made fashion cheap and cheap however they're all paying the cost of it today. They have collaborated with IRO IRO, Cloudwalker, Harago and Thappo.
GEM Enviro Management
They are backed by Ganesha Ecosphere limited (the largest PET recycling company in India with turnover of USD 100 million) for PET waste recycling and marketing and branding of the recycled yarn.
They have a tie up with certified recyclers for other packaging scraps. We are also active into promotion of recycled green products like T-Shirts, bags etc. made from recycling of waste material like used PET bottles and other eco-friendly materials
Their mission is to work towards environment sustainability and to be recognized as among the best packaging scrap management companies within and outside India.
The Company aspires to work towards providing complete packaging scrap solutions to its clients that includes collection (pre and post-consumer scrap), recycling and sale of recycled merchandise. The company also aims to help other corporates to fulfil their Extended Producer Responsibility.
Circular Design Challenge (Dia Mirza)
The Circular Design Challenge is a platform for younger style/accessory designers and marketers to exhibit and win a prize for their revolutionary ideas and collections made through the use of materials from various waste sources such as plastic. Launched in collaboration with Fashion for Earth by R|Elan™, UN Environment and Lakmè Fashion Week, it is one of India’s first and biggest sustainable fashion challenges in the fashion, textiles and clothing industry.
The winner of the Circular Design Challenge receives a grand cash prize of Rs. 20 lakhs and an exclusive opportunity to showcase their collection at India’s largest fashion platform, Lakmè Fashion Week. The winner will also receive business mentorship from Intellecap, a pioneer in consulting sustainable enterprises dedicated to social and environmental change through its industry-led initiative – the Circular Apparel Innovation Factory*.
This challenge allows creators from all scales to come and participate. The whole challenge is planned at a huge scale. They are also thinking about other challenges.
Solutions
Individually
Community & Nation (Industries and Factories)
- Pursue innovation to improve the quality and economics of textile recycling
If garments were made with only one fiber type, textile recycling would be easier, but this is not feasible or realistic. Therefore, innovative solutions that improve sorting and fiber separation should be encouraged.
- Better apparel and fabric sorting
Separating apparel and fabrics by fiber type and color will drastically improve recycling. One benefit of sorting by color means that some recycled yarns do not need to be re-dyed. However, this only really works for fabrics made from one fiber such as cotton or nylon. Other technologies include visual spectroscopy and Near Infrared technologies, both of which can improve sorting by fiber type and color.
- Separating fabric blends
Fiber recycling would be easier if fabric blends could be separated into fiber types. Moral Fiber and Worn Again use chemical recycling and other technologies to separate fabrics into fiber streams. The potential of these technologies is impressive: zero waste, greater transparency and conservation.
- Pursue innovation to improve the quality and economics of textile recycling
If garments were made with only one fiber type, textile recycling would be easier, but this is not feasible or realistic. Therefore, innovative solutions that improve sorting and fiber separation should be encouraged.
Depending on the fiber type, the resulting recycled material does not yield the same quality as its virgin counterpart. Mechanically recycled cotton is weaker than virgin cotton because the fiber length is shorter, whereas mechanically recycled polyester from plastic bottles yields a high quality fiber that is almost identical to its virgin counterpart.
- Stimulate demand for recycled materials
There are numerous examples of brand commitments to use more recycled materials in their products. Adidas committed to using only recycled plastics in its supply chain by 2024 and Everlane committed to using no new plastic by 2021, which includes product, packaging and single use plastics.
The Global Fashion Agenda, one of the organizations trailblazing circular textiles is working with its signatories to increase the share of garments made from recycled textile fibers.
Additional needs for stimulating demand include advantageous policies for recycled content and better matching supply to demand.
- Implement and scale clothing collection
The final recommendation is scaling clothing collection. There are many examples of successful take-back initiatives thanks to brands and retailers such as H&M and Zara.
There are several ways to collect unwanted clothing, and these include:
- Municipal waste collection
- Curbside collection and home pick-up
- Retailer drop-off or brand mail-back
- Charity drop-off
These methods do not exist in all countries and therefore it will be a challenge to implement waste-collection globally. In fact it will take a concerted effort, driven by new policies, tax-incentives and guidelines, to scale clothing collection.
Comments
Post a Comment