Abstract

It is no longer adequate to have a finishedproduct to be safe only to human beings, but the product has to beenvironmentally safe during its entire life cycle and even beyond.

The challenges facing the textile industry haveintensified during the last decade. Current awareness of the negativeenvironmental impact of chemical processing of textiles, combined withincreased strict legislation on industrial effluents, has led to the search foradvanced, non-polluting processes for treating natural and manufactured fibrefabrics.

The early-recorded history of textiles all overthe world is the same. Every single step of preparing a textile item wasmanual. There was no mass Production for commercial purposes. The textile itemswere, however, given in gift to show respect, love, affection and concern forthe dear ones. This brought about social changes conducive to create a healthysocial life. This situation remained unchanged till the industrial revolutiontook place in the 18^th century in Europe when the era of massproduction arrived. The worst casualty of this revolution was the environment.Man has now realized this fact at the cost of wasting more than two valuablecenturies.

Indian textile industry occupies a uniqueposition in the Indian economy. Over the period, it has gone through severalchanges. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to present an overviewof Indian textile industry in terms of its structure, associated problems, itsimpact on environment, pollution control strategies, German ban on azo dyes,response of textile ministry to cope with the implementation of German ban, andother environmental issues.

Thinkglobally, act locally is the slogan of tomorrow for the world textileindustry

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The Author is Technical Service-Executive, Chemistar, Intermediates (Pvt) Ltd