CLEANER TEXTILE PRODUCTION PROJECT: ACHIEVEMENTS AND FUTURE PLANS

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1 CLEANER TEXTILE PRODUCTION PROJECT: ACHIEVEMENTS AND FUTURE PLANS Pat Foure 1, Susan Barclay 1, Karen Lundbo 1 and Chris Buckley 2 1 Clothing and Textile Environmental Linkage Centre, PO Box 4464, Greenways, Pollution Research Group, School of Chemical Engineering, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, ABSTRACT The Danish funded Cleaner Textile Production Project (CTPP) ended in June This CTPP had two components; one in the cotton-growing sector; and the other in the textile-manufacturing sector. Both components have achieved excellent results through a number of different technical and dissemination activities. These results include improved environmental practices, including reduced water use and effluent production; and the implementation of cleaner production initiatives both on cotton farms and in textile companies. Based on the success of the CTPP, two new projects have been approved for funding by the Danish Government, which aim to extend and strengthen environmental awareness in commercial and small-scale cotton growers in South Africa, and the clothing and textile pipeline. This is to be achieved through the formation of two new organizations, namely: the Cleaner Cotton Production Unit (CCPU) based at Cotton SA in Pretoria, and the Clothing and Textile Environmental Linkage Centre (CTELC) based in Cape Town. This presentation will highlight the main results of the CTPP for both components, and outline the roles of the two new organizations. INTRODUCTION A joint initiative by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) and the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) prompted the Danish government into formulating a programme of assistance to South Africa in Cleaner Production in Five major industrial sectors were targeted, one of which was the textile industry. The Cleaner Textile Production Project (CTPP) was initiated in June 2000 and ended in June A life cycle approach was adopted for this project to ensure the careful examination of all the impacts of a particular textile end product, from raw materials extraction through to the end use and final disposal. The CTPP therefore focused on the entire textile pipeline, but concentrated mainly on cotton growing and textile manufacturing, as this is where the highest environmental impacts occur. The main aim of the project was to reduce the negative environmental impact of the textile industry, both at the cotton growing stage and the manufacturing stage, through a preventative approach. Following the success of the CTPP in reducing resource usage in participating organisations, a continuation of the project was approved with the establishment of two new centres. The Cleaner Cotton Production Unit is funded by Cotton SA and the Danish Government and seeks to inform both small and commercial cotton growers of opportunities and research into cleaner production methods and reduced chemical usage during cotton growing. The Clothing & Textile Environmental Linkage Centre is funded by the Department of Trade & Industry and the Danish Government and aims to extend the awareness of cleaner Textile products throughout the whole Clothing and Textile pipeline. Proceedings of the 2004 Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA) Biennial Conference 2 6 May 2004 ISBN: Cape Town, South Africa Produced by: Document Transformation Technologies Organised by Event Dynamics

2 This paper will provide an overview to the achievements of both the Cotton Growing and Textile Manufacturing components of the Cleaner Textile Production Project and highlight some of the objectives and initital activites of the extensions to this project, the Clothing & Textile Environmental Linkage Centre and the Cleaner Cotton Production Unit. CLEANER PRODUCTION IN COTTON GROWING The Cotton Growing Component of the Cleaner Textile Production Project focused on the amendment of the extensively polluting farming methods which are currently practiced internationally by the majority of commercial and many small scale cotton farmers. The activities of the Cotton Growing Component included the organization of a study tour to Turkey and Denmark, where a group of sixteen farmers and specialists in cotton were introduced to organic cotton farming and to the reduction of chemical use in cotton growing. In addition farm audits, surveys, research projects and specialized analyses were performed to investigate Cleaner Production options within the cotton growing sector. In addition 185 persons were trained, four conferences held, and seven workshops in Integrated Pest management and other Cleaner Production techniques in this sector. This Cotton Growing component of the Project combined the expertise of an entomologist and a widely experienced specialist in Cotton Farming. Many of the techniques used in the Project had been developed over many years and had been used particularly in small scale farming communities where funds for extensive use of chemical fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides and defoliants were not always readily available. Integrated Pest Management techniques were demonstrated, with infestations counted by trained Check Scouts and only when reaching proportions which will affect the crop detrimentally, is spraying performed. Crop spraying can then be performed using a knapsack sprayer whereby the crop can be accurately sprayed with only the minimum quantities of insecticides. Extensive dissemination of this information was achieved through the media of magazines, newspapers, newsletters, CD s, videos, posters, guides and exhibitions. These activities have resulted in increased knowledge and awareness of Cleaner Production options, throughout the Cotton Growing sector including such ongoing improved practices as the continued use of the check scouts to minimize inputs. THE ROLE OF THE NEW CLEANER COTTON PRODUCTION UNIT In order to continue these activities, the Cleaner Cotton Production Unit has been started under the auspices of Cotton SA and closely linked to their extensive Training initiatives. The unit is supported by both the Danish Government & Cotton SA. It aims to further support and strengthen awareness of Cleaner Cotton Production in the Commercial and Small scale cotton growers in South Africa. This unit will extend both the technical content and geographical coverage of the Integrated Pest Management training. In addition they will demonstrate the benefits of environmental management programmes for cotton farms, maintaining links for dissemination and discussion on Cleaner cotton production. The activities to achieve this will include Training Programmes in Cleaner Production in Cotton Growing in all cotton regions and with both commercial and small scale farmers. Demonstration Projects are in progress on both commercial and small scale farms to show farmers the benefits of Integrated Pest Management. Trials in pesticide application and Integrated pest management will be performed by the check scouts.

3 Then these activities will be combined with extensive dissemination and publication of the results of the Demonstration projects and trials. Specialist publications, information workshops and training programmes will be used to continue to spread the information to all cotton growers regarding opportunities to reduce valuable resource inputs, especially pesticides and other chemicals. Since its inception in mid 2003, this unit has already started the demonstration project at one commercial farm and the demonstration projects by check scouts at several small scale farms. They have produced and distributed a Cleaner Cotton guide for farmers, cd s of papers at an Organic Cotton workshop held in South Africa last year and published a newsletter and articles on Cleaner cotton growing in Farmers weekly. They have also invited commercial Cotton farmers to an Information day on Cleaner Cotton production activities and results. This new unit will therefore extend the scope of the original Cleaner Textile Production Project by effectively continuing to reduce the polluting effects of cotton growing in South Africa. CLEANER PRODUCTION IN TEXTILE MANUFACTURE As detailed in the Paper and Poster, Cleaner Production makes Good Business sense, South African Textile Manufacturers have reported extensively reduced water, energy and chemical use as a result of using the Cleaner Production techniques promoted by the Cleaner Textile Production Project. These techniques have been described in detail in the above quoted poster and included questioning normal practices, thinking creatively, improving housekeeping, improving communications on usages and savings, investing in technology, awareness through training and technology transfer. The technical activities utilised to assist in changing the mindset of key South African industrialists and textile specialists towards the use of resources have included technical visits, factory audits, feasibility studies, demonstration projects, study tours and waste minimization training. A total of 50 people attended study tours to Denmark to view Cleaner Production initiatives in Denmark together with a group of their South African associates. The benefits of viewing new ideas as a group and returning with strong and useful relationships built up from the tours are difficult to quantify, but are likely to last and remain effective for many years. A total of 27 factory audits were performed which would look at the overall opportunities for cleaner production, together with 4 studies looking specifically at opportunities to reduce Compressed Air usage. Many of these audits and studies have already resulted in reported savings for the Companies involved. A total of 16 feasibility studies were performed to investigate more specific options for reduced resource usage, and these resulted in 6 subsidies for Cleaner Production Projects within the Industry which because of their innovative nature would serve as case studies and examples for other organizations within the Industry to utilize these same technologies to affect cleaner production improvements. Another project within the industry involved the assistance to a group of South African Companies to attain the EU Flower ecolabel on a specified product. This demonstrated that several South African Textile manufacturers are able to meet these demanding International standards and produce Textile products without the use of undesirable chemical inputs. In another project, the Danish Score system for assessing the impacts of Textile effluent was used to evaluate 9 South African companies and these results and the system were disseminated to the Local Authorities for future consideration as an alternative to the standard sampling and testing regimes. In total, 16 International Consultants were utilized for input into these key areas of the Textile Industry in order to improve Cleaner Production performance.

4 The dissemination activities utilized within the Project included conferences, management awareness seminars, the Cotton SA Merit Awards, presentations, research projects, workshops and publications. The overall savings that were reported by participating companies as of June 2003 were detailed in the Poster Cleaner Production makes good business sense, but are worthwhile repeating here. As explained in that poster, the number in brackets next to the figures reflects the number of companies contributing to this saving and this table only includes the known reported savings it must be made clear that the companies may have achieved further savings than reported here and this must be followed up on. In some cases this data is over a year old, and in others the company has not ever submitted a full report on the savings they have achieved. Table 1. Summary of reported savings (June 2003). Item Annual financial saving Annual unit saving** Water and effluent (12) kl (8) Steam (6) tons (2) Energy (3) Heavy fuel oil (3) 480 kl (2) Chemicals (6) 7 tons (1) Waste (4) Other* (5) Total (16) * Other includes aspects such as raw material and consumables Many of the results of the manufacturing component of the Cleaner Textile Production Project cannot be quantified. These include increased awareness within the industry as a result of the study tours, training, workshops and published articles in magazines and journals. In addition increased awareness of Cleaner Production in the Textile Industry has been generated within Local Government as a result of the above activities together with the preparation of a Cleaner Production handbook specifically designed for use by the Local Authorities. In order to assist in the continuance of these ideas the tertiary education institutions have been included in the project with the provision of workshops and seminars and the inclusion in Study tours in order to increase their awareness of Cleaner Production in the Textile Industry Numerous successful case studies have been reported as a result of the Cleaner Textile Production Project but as Cleaner production involves continuous improvement, there was a need to continue some level of support for Textile manufacturers who should continue to be encouraged to investigate improvements, make process changes, and achieve financial and environmental savings. Some of this support should be provided through the National Cleaner Production Centre, which is described in further detail below. There is however still a requirement to increase the awareness and knowledge of Cleaner Production options throughout the entire Clothing & Textile pipeline. To meet this ongoing opportunity to assist the Textile pipeline in Environmental awareness the Clothing & Textile Environmental Linkage centre was established. THE ROLE OF THE NEW NATIONAL CLEANER PRODUCTION CENTRE (NCPC) This centre is funded by UNIDO, the Austrian and Swiss Governments, together with the DTI and the CSIR and the Centre covers the Chemical, Food and Textile Industries. The National Cleaner Production Centre seeks to enhance the competitiveness and productive capacity of these national industries, focusing on SME s, through the increased application of cleaner production techniques and the transfer of Environmentally sound technologies. This centre can therefore continue to support the Textile manufacturing sector in the provision of technical assistance and specialist knowledge in the available Cleaner Production Technology, as initiated by the Cleaner Production Project. As it is backed by the specialized experience and knowledge of the CSIR it is uniquely positioned to offer an expert service to the Industry.

5 To date their input has included a specialist training Course in the Western Cape in Cleaner Production for Textile Industries, together with the commissioning of reports and studies into the state of Cleaner Production in the Textile Industry and specifically on the textile printing process which has been identified as presenting opportunities for cleaner production method changes. It is expected that their input should spread the knowledge, initially imparted by the Cleaner Textile Production Project to an estimated 20% of the Textile manufacturing Industry, to the whole of the South African Textile Industry. Thus, if one extrapolates the estimated savings from the original project, this centre could contribute very significant water and energy resource savings to our country. This Centre therefore has enormous potential to reduce our water and energy usages and ultimately affect our long term environmental position very favourably. THE ROLE OF THE NEW CLOTHING AND TEXTILE ENVIRONMENTAL LINKAGE CENTRE This new component aims to strengthen the linkage between the Clothing Industry, Retailers and Cleaner Textile Production in South Africa. The most effective method of maintaining the momentum of Cleaner Production improvements from the Textile manufacturing sector will be by increasing the demand for such Cleaner Products from the downstream sectors of the Clothing Manufacturing and Retailing sectors of the Clothing & Textile pipeline. This Centre has been established at the CSIR in Cape Town and funded by the Danish Government and the DTI, and has a project duration until the end of With the emphasis of the Centre predominantly on awareness and communication, the technical support requirements of the Textile industry should be provided, as discussed above, by the National Cleaner Production Centre. The Clothing & Textile Environmental Linkage Centre therefore aims to extend environmental awareness of Cleaner Products throughout the whole Clothing & Textile pipeline in South Africa. The areas identified in order to achieve this are, to establish and maintain a database of environmental information relating to the Clothing & Textile pipeline, to raise the awareness of decision makers throughout the pipeline of environmental initiatives relating to the manufacturing and sale of products produced in an environmentally responsible manner, to increase the knowledge of designers and buyers of environmental issues and how to integrate these into product requirements, and finally to proactively identify and communicate market opportunities for textile products produced in an environmentally responsible manner. Acitivities completed to raise this awareness and knowledge have included the continuation of the much coveted Cotton SA Special Merit award for Cleaner Production which is fiercely contested by several innovative Textile manufacturers annually. Resource savings reported from this competition have been impressive and the Companies entering have served as leaders in the industry and proved to be examples of the successes achievable from Cleaner Production inititatives. The Centre serves as an information hub for Environmental management and Ecolabel queries from the Industry and will assist with information or sources of information to all enquiries. Opportunities to inform the pipeline on the benefits of Cleaner Production implementation are seized at every opportunity, including the attendance at Textile Fairs and conferences. Opportunities to inform the industry on Cleaner Production successes have also come through newsletters and the trade publications circulated throughout the Industry. Continued small cleaner production demonstration projects have been completed when opportunities arise, to serve as examples to be published in the Textile trade magazines. For example a Cleaner Production study was completed for the Wild Silk Development project in progress in the North West province. The main two activities in progress for 2004 are the Environmentally Friendly Design Competition and the Cleaner Production initiative in the Clothing Sector. The Environmentally friendly design competition was launched in February with Workshops in Cleaner Production and Environmentally

6 friendly Fashion design given to technikons and universities. This competition has many very exciting prizes including study tours to Denmark for 8 of the winning entrants. The competition culminates in the showing of the finalist garments and designs at the Cape Town Fashion week. This competition should improve awareness of Cleaner Production in Textiles throughout our Textile lecturers, students, fashion industry and even to many of the general public through this exposure at the widely publicised Fashion Week. The introduction of Cleaner Production into Clothing manufacture will utilise an International clothing consultant to study 3 to 4 South African Clothing manufacturers during March and use that information to give advice to Clothing manufacturers in general as to how they can reduce resource usage to produce their garments both cleaner and more economically. In addition retailers and other specifiers are targeted for the provision of information about textile production, so that they are able to make informed choices from the range of Textile products and are able to choose the most environmentally friendly option in their purchases. This increased knowledge and awareness throughout the pipeline, will both assist the Mnaufacturers to make Cleaner Production decisions in their production methods and assist the users of their products to discern the responsibly manufactured products from those made in a less environmentally responsible manner. We can expect major potential improvements in resource usage from this two pronged approach. OTHER CONTINUING ACTIVITIES INITIATED BY THE CLEANER TEXTILE PRODUCTION PROJECT These additional continuing activities are also detailed in the Poster Cleaner Production makes good business sense. Demonstration Project Review The five demonstration projects subsidized by the CTPP all aimed at reduced or improved water use. They included liquor displacement, direct water re-use, chemical free rinsing, salt and colour reduction and reclamation and re-use of rinsing water. The results for the period to September 2004 will be monitored and reported. A dissemination workshop will be held for other manufacturers to review these results and consider their own potential improved water use options. Handbook for Best Available Techniques (BAT) for the South African Textile Industry Comprehensive, but voluminous handbooks have been researched and published in Europe, US and UK, which cover Best available Techniques in the Textile Industry. A concise and user-friendly Handbook for use specifically by South African Textile Manufacturers and Regulators will be prepared, and will include a guide to South African Environmental legislation and an ideas catalogue for BAT. Life Cycle Analysis of Cotton- Effects of Different Cotton Growing Methods on Fabric Manufacture In order to quantify the effects of different Cotton growing and picking methods on the conversion process through Spinning to woven Cotton Knot fabric, a study has been commissioned to compare and measure these effects. This study has been commissioned jointly by the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC) and the CTPP to compare 5 variations in Cotton Production through to knitted cotton Fabric manufacture. Score System for use by Regulators and Textile Manufacturers The provision of information regarding this method of analyzing & reporting environmental effects of Textile effluent was initiated by the CTPP. It is now a research project of the Water Research commission to tailor the proven Danish practices to South African needs and to disseminate the advantages to regulators and the industry. These additional research projects and studies are complementary to the function of the Clothing & Textile Environmental Linkage Centre as these studies will provide background information for reference by the Centre and the Centre is in a good position to circulate the results of these studies

7 for the benefit of the industry. CONCLUSIONS The practical results, savings and increased awareness achieved by the Cleaner Textile Production Project from 2000 to 2003 were excellent. To achieve continuing improvements there necessitated the introduction of additional inititiatives to aid sustainability. These additional initiatives described above will therefore serve to strengthen the changes introduced by the original Project. They will assist in increasing the spread of Cleaner Production within the clothing & textile pipeline, together with interested and affected organizations, and ensure the continuance of these improved practices for many years into the future. These projects seek to extend the scope of the awareness of Cleaner Production options from the core Cotton Growing & Textile manufacturing Industries to the larger pipelines. This will therefore work towards the ultimate goal of a greater Consumer awareness creating a pressure from the End Users of Textile products that their purchases are produced with the minimum inputs of scarce resources of water and energy, and minimum inputs of polluting chemicals. This increasing knowledge and demand for Environmental responsibility from the general public will ultimately ensure the widespread compliance to this responsibility, but in the interim Projects such as the Cleaner Cotton Production Unit and the Clothing & Textile Environmental Linkage Centre have a major essential task to perform in consolidating the initiatives of the Cleaner Textile Production Project into more widespread Industry practices. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Cleaner Textile Production Project and Clothing & Textile Environmental Linkage Centre are sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Danish Government. The Cleaner Cotton Production Unit is sponsored by Cotton SA and the Danish Government. The National Cleaner Production Centre is sponsored by UNIDO, DTI, CSIR and the Austrian and Swiss Governments. The Score system Project is sponsored by the Water Research Commission. REFERENCES 1. Darudec (June 2003), Draft Completion Report; Cleaner Textile Production Project. 2. Darudec (Nov. 2003), Interim Progress Report; Cleaner Textile Production Project.