KARACHI – Leading Pakistani denim manufacturer, Artistic Fabric and Garment Industries, has developed new technology which it claims completely eliminates wastewater from its textile dyeing and finishing process.
The Double Zero solution draws on two existing products by the business, these being True Zero Dyeing and True Zero Finishing. The company says the key to the technology is that it uses the absolute minimum required to allow dyes to penetrate the fabric, while all of the dyeing and fabric finishing water is evaporated at the end of the process or recovered. This, it is claimed, results in in zero water being discharged, no effluents and no COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand).
“This breakthrough technology allows us to save the tremendous amount of water traditionally used in indigo dyeing and mercerise finishing,” the company said in a note.
“Producing denim requires a great quantity of water. Besides growing cotton, most of the water used is discharged as waste-water after industrial processes like indigo dyeing and fabric finishing. While the industry’s focus thus far has been to try to get this waste water to be as clean and clear as possible, Artistic Fabric & Garment Industries believes it is time for true change.”
Artistic Fabric has been researching for some considerable time ways to tackle the challenge of harmful water and chemical discharge, as well as looking at how it can reduce its overall water consumption.
As part of this it has invested in several waste water treatment and recycling plants which are designed for the reuse of wastewater in the manufacturing process and utility departments and also to achieve the British Standard Guidelines and European Standard parameters for water discharge into the sea.
The company says it has a long term goal of recovering 65 per cent its daily water consumption through reverse osmosis plants.