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Pak textile sector to face biggest challenges in quota-free scenario
LAHORE, Dec 23: While confronting with cutting down environmental burdens, the textile sector of Pakistan will has to face one of the biggest challenges facing of complying with international environmental protocols in the quota-free market scenario.
Independent analysts say that the buyers would have the stick in making it inevitable for the sector to implement quality standards such as ISO 9001, and environmental standard ISO 14000. All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), on the other hand, is of the view that WTO is not binding the sector for the compliance.
The Pakistan Agricultural Research Council has warned that textile exports might face a bleak sphere in the absence of focussed measures adopted for updating technology to address the environment relating concerns.
The experts said that almost every major textile group has its own power plant being run by using fossil fuel, emitting toxic effluent into the air as well as generating major environmental concerns for ground water.
Experts said that Pakistan lacks facilities in effluent treatment with unsatisfactory implementation, shortage of resources and lack of technical facilities and personals.
The experts pointed out that water discharges carries the prominent environmental problems of the textile industry. Textile processing employs a variety of chemicals, depending on the nature of the raw material and products, with different enzymes, detergents, dyes, acids, sodas and salts. Industrial processes generate wastewater containing heavy metal contaminants. Most of heavy metals are non-degradable into non-toxic end products. Their concentrations must be reduced to acceptable levels before discharging them into environment, posing threats to public health besides affecting the aesthetic quality of potable water.
According to World Health Organization (WHO) the metals of most immediate concern are chromium, Zinc, iron, mercury and lead. The fate of these chemicals varies, ranging from 100% retention on the fabric to 100% discharge with the effluent. Generally, there are a number of wet processes involved with high requirements for resource inputs, generating several types of wastewater.
Textile finishing industry uses large amounts of water for washing, processing wastewaters high flow rates. The particular textile mill has a daily requirement of 120,000 litres of water at 800-850C.
Experts says that textile wastewater contains substantial pollution loads in terms of COD, BOD, TSS, TDS and heavy metals. The values of these parameters are very high as compared to the values in National Environment Quality Standards (NEQS) set by the government.
The experts said that very little work had been done so far on the characterization of textile wastewater, “which ever has been done, is not authentic”. Characteristics of textile wastewater are pre requisite for the investigation of treatment options.
Increase in literacy and WTO implication has made environment an important issue in all the industrial sectors. Textile sector being major exporter of Pakistan has to comply with ISO 14000 undeniably.
All industries had erected almost same process like desizing, mercerising, bleaching, dyeing, and finishing of cloth. Some of industries were using canal water and other ground water for their processes, making alum treatment to reduce turbidity.
Daily water consumption was calculated from the pumping rate while wastewater flow rate was determined with help of weir at the main outlet of industry. Average wastewater consumption varied from 2500m3/day to 5000m3/day depending upon industry size and production. Textile production involves a number of wet processes using large quantities of water and other chemicals. Process wastewater is a major source of pollutants.
Experts also associated environmental problems with prevailing agricultural practices as well as the use of other chemicals in the growing as well as processing stage.
Water use and common tilling practices effect water quality adversely, and lead to water scarcity, soil erosion, and waterlogging and salinity. Chemical fertilizers cause soil and water contamination, and affect soil fertility.
Experts say that chemical pesticides affect human health as well as biological diversity and surface and groundwater quality.
Although the full impact on human health is difficult to measure, especially in southern countries, the acute toxicity of the substances is not in question. In addition, the World Health Organization (WHO) has concluded that exposure to pesticides is probably carcinogenic as well as toxic.
Some pesticides leave persistent residues in soil, groundwater, and the food chain, thus exposing the human population to slow and cumulative poisoning. Various studies estimate the impact to be as high as 20,000 people killed and 3 million poisoned every year.
Thought direct figures on the use of pesticides on cotton in Pakistan are not available, however, reasonably reliable estimates since Pakistani farmers do not use herbicides or defoliants (since cotton is picked manually), the main source of concern is the use of insecticides.
The ministry of agriculture estimate say that average pesticide use lies between 13,000 and 15,000 tonnes.
However, there are indications that the country may already be on the pesticide treadmill. For one thing, pesticide use is about twice the level recommended by cotton researchers and extension staff. Second, the area covered as well as the number of sprays and volume of pesticides has increased dramatically over the last 15 years.
The Ministry of Food and Agriculture reports that before 1983 only 5 to 10 per cent of the cotton growing area in the Punjab was treated with pesticides; by 2003, this had increased to between 95 and 98 per cent.