'Textile sector is one of the largest consumers of water'

In an interview with Fibre2Fashion correspondent, Ilin Mathew, Mr. Olaf Rintsch, president of Textile Division at Bureau of International Recycling (BIR), said, “More than 20,000 litres of water is used to produce 1kg of cotton.”

Explaining further, Mr. Abhijit Ganguly, brand director of Grasim, says, “World-over, the textile industry and especially the wet processing industry is one of the largest consumer of water in manufacturing and hence one of the main producers of industrial wastewater.”

Talking about the textile industry in India, Mr. GS Krishnan, regional president of India at Novozymes South Asia Pvt. Ltd, says, “While the textile industry is one of the largest industries in India, it is also considered as one of the most polluting industries due to the extensive use of chemicals, energy and water.”

“For instance, it takes approximately 150,000 litres of clean water to make one ton of knitwear,” he informs.

The textile makers world-wide are currently focusing on more water-friendly technologies for production to confront water risks.

According to Mr. Rintsch, if we recycle textile the water consumption is just the half of this amount and recycling can be done by using the contents which are already there on streets.

“A pair of jeans can be recycled 5 times, so an apparel company should have a recycler attached to it,” he concludes.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India