Accepted Manuscript

Sustainable Chemistry: A Solution to the Textile Industry in a Developing World

Ullhas Nimkar

PII: S2452-2236(17)30066-4
DOI: 10.1016/j.cogsc.2017.11.002
Reference: COGSC 108

To appear in: Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry

Received Date: 30 June 2017

Revised Date: 24 October 2017
Accepted Date: 15 November 2017

Please cite this article as: U. Nimkar, Sustainable Chemistry: A Solution to the Textile Industry in
a Developing World, Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry (2017), doi: 10.1016/
j.cogsc.2017.11.002.

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Sustainable Chemistry: A Solution to the Textile Industry in a Developing World

Ullhas Nimkar, NimkarTek Technical Services Pvt. Ltd., India

Abstract:

With exponential increase in global population and innovations in chemistry during the past century,
chemical production has grown enormously. The textile production, which started in the West
gradually moved to low cost developing countries. Inadequate legislation and control in these
countries has led to the pollution of the natural water bodies there. The textile industry uses over

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8000 chemicals in its supply chain and today faces the challenging demand to move towards cleaner
production. NGOs have challenged the industry to achieve the goal of Zero Discharge of Hazardous
Chemicals across all pathways by 2020. The industry has taken strong initiatives to address this

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challenge. In the long term, sustainable chemistry will be the only solution and innovation is the key.

Keywords: Textiles, Population, Wastewater, ZDHC, Greenpeace and Sustainable Chemistry

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I. Background:

Since the industrial revolution, the textile industry has always played a significant role and has

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continuously moved to lower cost manufacturing countries. Starting with Britain in the late 18th
century after the invention of the Spinning Jenny, the yarn and fabric manufacturing industry moved
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to Japan in the 50’s and 60’s. The production then moved to Hong Kong, Taiwan, & Korea in the 70’s
and the 80’s. The next geographical shift was to China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh,
Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand in the 80’s and the 90’s. Today, we are seeing the
fourth shift to countries such as Myanmar, Nicaragua, Kenya, Madagascar and Ethiopia.
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With the shifting textile industry, pollution caused from textile processing is shifting as well. One of
the latest reports from the journal ‘Eco Textile News’ reads “Highly Contaminated” effluent from
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Ethiopian Textile Mills being discharged at limits far exceeding those set by the National
Environmental Protection Agency.[1]
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Man’s technological development in synthetic chemistry began with the fractionation of oil in the
middle of the 19th century and this discovery yielded hundreds of raw materials such as synthetic
textile fibres,paints and coatings, polymers, adhesives, perfumes and synthetics drugs. Chemistry
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certainly changed the quality of our lives giving us products that we never had before. Building
blocks from benzene led to several dyes, pigments and chemicals used in synthesis of fibres and
finishing of textiles. More than 8,000 different chemicals are used in textiles. Assessing the impact of
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these chemicals on human health and environment is a huge task and is not really appreciated by
consumers, who are not always willing to pay adequate prices for product safety, expect in the case
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of branded products.

The global population is rising exponentially, from a mere 1 billion in 1800 to over 7 billion today and
the prediction is 11 billion by the turn of the century. With a per capita consumption of textiles and
apparel of 7 kg per person per annum, we are looking at a consumption of over 49 billion kg of
textile products per year. This consumption and thus the production will grow exponentially with the
increase in population and growth in the standard of living in developing countries.

This growth correlates with the exponential growth in chemical production as well: from a mere 1
million tonne produced in 1930 to 400 million tons in the year 2000. [3]
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Figure 1: World Population Growth[2)

80,00,000

70,00,000

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60,00,000

50,00,000

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40,00,000

30,00,000

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20,00,000

10,00,000

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1900

1910

1920

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010
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Figure 2: Growth in chemical production [3]
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Million Tons ??
800

700
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600
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500
400
Million Tons

400
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300

200
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100
1
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0
1930 2000 2020
Year

Data source: Environmental fact sheet: REACH – a new chemical policy for EU (February,2006)

It is estimated that for the current level of production, we use 5 billion kg of dyes, pigments and
finishing chemicals. A significant portion of this enters the natural water bodies since many
chemicals are not completely broken down by effluent treatment or due to inadequate controls in
implementing wastewater discharge laws in many producing countries. Textile industry is a
significant contributor to water pollution and perhaps second only to tanneries and pulp & paper
industry. A report from Kurt Salmon Associates clearly states “….the Textile and Apparel Supply
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Chain has $34 billion in Waste from its Current Processes and a significant component is colour”.
This is a staggering number and with growing production of textiles all over the world, this number
could increase significantly over the next years.

Several chemicals used in everyday products are today found to have a severe impact on Health and
Environment, including many that are used in the textile industry. The impact on health can range
from causing allergies, to chemicals that are toxic to reproduction, leading to birth defects. Several
chemicals are now identified as Carcinogenic, Mutagenic or Endocrine disruptors. We are still

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learning about the long-term health effects due to prolonged exposure to chemicals in every day
products. The impact of chemicals on the environment includes climate change, pollution on land,
water and air, increasing plastic waste in the ocean, acid rain, persistent organic pollutants and

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those having aquatic toxicity.

A survey conducted in the EU showed that consumers are concerned about chemicals in everyday

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products, along with other concerns such as water pollution, man-made disasters, climate change
and air pollution. [4]

II. Chemicals Used in Textiles:

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Until 1856, man used natural fibres such as cotton, silk and wool and the dyes used to dye them also
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came from a natural origin. In 1856, Sir William Henry Perkin accidentally discovered the first
synthetic dye ‘Mauve’. Further advances in chemistry led to the development of synthetic fibres
such as nylon and polyester in 1930s. This lead to further innovation in dyes, which could colour
these synthetic fibres. These dyes were based on different chemistries such as naphthols, sulphur,
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triphenyl methane, nitroso, azoics, phthalocyanine, reactives based on cyanuric chloride, Azo,
Anthraquinone, Stilbene and others. There are more than 12 different groups of dyes in use in textile
coloration. Along with technological developments in coloration, speciality chemicals were
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developed too, to impart functional properties such as softening, wrinkle-free effect, oil and water
repellency, flame retardancy, anti-bacterial property and many more. Approximately 90% of these
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finishing chemicals remain on the substrate, the balance is washed off during processing and
subsequent consumer use.

Many of the chemicals used to impart the above properties are found to be harmful today such as
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use of Tri butyl tin (TBT) as an anti-bacterial chemical, APEOs (Alkyl Phenol Ethylene Oxide
condensates) in softeners, PFCs (Per Flourinated Compounds) in oil repellent finish, Formaldehyde in
wrinkle- free finishing resins, and chlorinated and brominated chemicals in flame retardant
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formulations. Although the harmful effects of several chemicals used in textile manufacture were
known for some time since the 1970s, chemical residues in end articles were formally addressed
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only in the 1990s. A ban on the use of azo dyes releasing carcinogenic amines, to residues of PCP
(Pentachlorophenol), the use of allergenic disperse dyes, organotin compounds, formaldehyde,
NPEOs (Nonyl Phenol Ethoxylates), phthalates and heavy metals such as lead and cadmium, the list
continued to grow over the years. Government agencies, brands and several private institutions took
remedial measures towards cleaner production of textiles.
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Some of the legislations regulating chemicals in consumer goods are listed below:

Legislation Country
Registration Evaluation Authorization and Restriction of chemicals (REACH) EU
Biocidal Product Regulation (BPR) EU
Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) USA
Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) USA

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The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (California Proposition 65) USA
Children's Safe Product Act USA

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Canadian Environmental Protection Act Canada
Chemical Substances Control Law Japan

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Self-Regulatory Safety Confirmation Act Korea

Regulations on Limitations of Substances in Products Norway

The Chemical Risk Reduction Ordinance Switzerland

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Various global brands came up with their Restricted Substances List (RSLs) (http://afirm-
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group.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2017-AFIRM_RSL_2016_1214.pdf) to control and restrict
the use of harmful substances used in their products. Similar to this, various private institutions
came up with eco-labels such as GOTS (http://www.global-standard.org) and OekoTex
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(https://www.oeko-tex.com/en/splashpage/index.xhtml). Many brands demand these certificates

from their suppliers as a sign of confidence indicating that there were no harmful chemicals in their
products. However, the RSL criteria had one significant drawback; they controlled restricted
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substances on end articles only while the wastewater and air pollution went unchecked.

The Greenpeace Dirty Laundry reports significantly highlight this drawback. [5]
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III. Recent Industry Challenges:

In 2010, Greenpeace launched a campaign to highlight pollution caused by the textile industry in
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China through their “Dirty Laundry” Reports, which showed a host of hazardous chemicals were
being released into the Pearl river from two textile production facilities in China. In their second
report, “Dirty Laundry: Hung out to dry”, Greenpeace demonstrated that several toxic substance
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residues are found in products sold by global brands. Majority of the products had residues of
NPEOs, a substance that was already restricted in many brand RSLs [6]. When these products were
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subjected to home laundering, most of the APEOs were washed off. This showed that although the
production of these items was not done in Europe, eventually they are polluting the water bodies in
the country of import [7]. There after, Greenpeace has published several reports, which has exposed
the use & discharge of harmful chemicals in the textile supply chain in different countries from
where global apparel brands are sourcing their products. [8]

Greenpeace’s Detox Campaign encouraged Brands to take immediate action, and commit their
entire supply chain to achieve Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals across all pathways. This has
resulted in the ZDHC Or Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals Initiative, where 24 signatory brands
are leading the textile and footwear industry towards the goal of ZDHC with a target date of 2020 for
achieving these goals. [9]
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The ZDHC initiative covers zero discharge of hazardous chemicals across all pathways i.e. input
chemicals, wastewater, sludge, air emissions and end articles. Over the past years, ZDHC has
developed several guidelines to help the industry achieve this ambitious target. Noteworthy among
them are the following four:

1. ZDHC MRSL (Manufacturing Restricted Substances List): Bans intentional use and sets limits
for residues of restricted analytes in input chemicals, recognizing the possibility of
unintentional contaminations or cross contaminations during manufacturing or synthesis
2. Wastewater Guidelines: Sets limits for hazardous chemicals in discharged water in 3 levels

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of Foundational, Progressive and Aspirational, at ppb levels of detection
3. Audit protocol: A self-assessment tool to check chemical management systems within a
facility.
4. Chemical Gateway: An open database of chemicals that meet the limit value criteria of the

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ZDHC MRSL

The logic of the ZDHC MRSL is clean input chemicals will result in clean outputs which means that if

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chemicals used in the manufacturing process at a textile production facility are ‘free’ of harmful
substances (listed in the ZDHC MRSL), the finished article will also be ‘free’ of these residues after
application on the article and such residues will not be discharged into wastewater and sludge
generated during the manufacturing process.

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The Dirty Laundry reports highlight presence of substances such as toluene, dichloromethane,
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chloroform and 2- chloroaniline in wastewater [10]. These compounds are not directly used in textile
processing and thus it is necessary to investigate the reason for their presence. It is the opinion of
the author that these compounds are being formed due to degradation of larger molecules in the
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effluent treatment process. The below example shows the breakdown mechanism of C.I. Disperse
Red 151 under reductive conditions where the double bond undergoes cleavage to form 4-amino
azo benzene which further degrades to Aniline and 1, 4-phenylene diamine(11).
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Figure 3: Possible breakdown of mechanism of C.I. Disperse Red 151

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C.I, Disperse Red 151

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Aniline

With the MRSL limits, the industry is facing a challenge on how to control unintentional
contaminations. In addition, the non-availability of standardized test methods to detect these
unintentional residues in chemical formulations is also a challenge, due to lack of standardisation of
this analysis in global test laboratories.

The industry in South India faced a new challenge in 2010; the Madras High Court ordered closure of
over 800 dyeing factories that did not have adequate wastewater treatment facilities. These
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factories implemented tertiary treatment technologies that resulted in complete recycling of the
treated wastewater or what is now called ‘Zero Liquid Discharge’ [12].

IV. Sustainable Chemistry(13) – The Way Forward

Textiles and apparel being basic needs, will remain essential and we will have to think of long-term

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sustainable solutions. The industry has come up with several innovative solutions to tackle the
pollution caused by the textile industry. Some of these are:

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1) Use of PVA for sizing of cotton instead of starch. Starch significantly increases the COD value
of wastewater whereas PVA is recoverable.
2) Clay- based products have been developed as an eco-friendly auxiliary to be used in textile

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pre-treatment and for oligomer reduction in polyester dyeing. Clays, being of inorganic
constitution, do not require any special treatment or handling after use.
3) Archroma, one of the biggest manufacturer of textile dyes and chemicals, have come out
with Earth Colours, developed from bio-waste.[14]

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4) Many chemical and dye manufacturing companies have come up with ‘Positive Chemicals’
list which enlist the products which comply with the MRSL limits
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(http://www.roadmaptozero.com/programme/)
5) Dyeing of Polyester with super critical CO2, eliminates the use of water completely, thereby
resulting in no effluent discharge. The trade-off is that the process is energy intensive.
6) Digital printing, which works on ‘drop on demand’ technology, eliminates the use of harmful
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chemicals in screen preparation and does not generate effluent load

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V. Other Challenges for sustainability in textiles

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While end product and wastewater is the current focus of the industry, air emissions and sludge
generated from effluent treatment is relatively unmonitored. Effluent treatment generates large
amount of sludge and almost all the substances from the wastewater precipitate into the sludge. In
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the developing countries, this sludge is generally disposed-off into unsecured landfills from where
harmful chemicals might leach out over time and enter the environment.
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Apart from these direct problems from textiles manufacturing, another problem the world will face
is safe disposal of used clothes. Discarded clothes usually end up in unsecured landfills. Textile dyes
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and speciality chemicals are designed such that almost 90% stay on the fabric while the remaining
10% is discharged into the effluent during manufacture. While we are concerned with these 10%
chemicals from entering our water bodies, we need to look at the 90% of the dyes and chemicals
that are on the fabrics when they end up in landfills. These will degrade over time and leach out to
the same water bodies we are trying to preserve. This major issue is not being currently addressed
adequately.

Thus, the textile chemicals industry will have to look at more sustainable chemicals that are designed
to degrade into safer metabolites at the end of life(,15,16,17,18).
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References:

• [1] TEXTILES AND GARMENTS – AN INDUSTRY TRANSFORMATION IN THE MAKING -

http://www.anzbusiness.com/content/dam/anz-
superregional/Textiles%26GarmentIndustryUpdate.pdf
• [2] Chart prepared from data sourced from Wikipedia
• [3]Environment fact sheet: REACH- a new chemical policy for EU
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/pdf/reach.pdf
• [4] SPECIAL EUROBAROMETER 365-Attitudes of European citizens towards the environment

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http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_365_sum_en.pdf
• *[5] Dirty Laundry - Unraveling the corporate connections to toxic water pollution in China
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/Dirty-Laundry/
This is the first report which studied the presence of harmful chemicals in treated

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wastewater discharged from Chinese textile mills into the Pearl river.
• *[6] Dirty Laundry 2: Hung Out to Dry - Unraveling the toxic trail from pipes to products

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http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/Dirty-Laundry-2/
This report establishes the presence of Nonylphenol Ethoxylates in 78 articles bought from
Brands’ flagship stores
• *[7] Dirty Laundry: Reloaded - How big brands are making consumers unwitting accomplices

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in the toxic water cycle
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/Campaign-reports/Toxics-
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reports/Dirty-Laundry-Reloaded/
This report highlights the washing off of Nonylphenol Ethoxylate (NPE) from garments tested
positive for NPE and establishes that through domestic laundering of clothing imported from
producing countries, NPEs can contaminate European rivers.
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• [8] Greenpeace Detox Campaign

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/detox/
• [9] Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) - www.roadmaptozero.com
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• [10] Investigation of hazardous chemical discharges from two textile-manufacturing facilities

in China - Kevin Brigden, Iryna Labunska, Mike Pearson, David Santillo & Paul Johnston
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Greenpeace Research Laboratories Technical Note 01/2011

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/toxics/Water%
202011/Textilemanufacture_China.pdf
•
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(11) Paper on ‘Risk Management approach’ by Health Canada, March 2017, Pg no 25

(http://www.ec.gc.ca/ese-ees/0F6111A3-1074-47DD-BF76-
6D6F88FDE4DC/RMA%20DY3%20_En.pdf)
• [12] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/coimbatore/Total-shutdown-in-
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Tirupur/articleshow/7552832.cms
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• (13) http://www.unep.org/chemicalsandwaste/what-we-do/policy-and-
governance/sustainable-chemistry

• (14) EARTHCOLORS BY ARCHROMA http://www.bpt.archroma.com/earthcolorsbyarchroma/

• **(15) Environmental Science and TechnologyVolume 49, Issue 19, 20 August 2015, Pages
11756-11763 by Westphal, J.a, Logunova, E.a, Gathergood, N.c, Kummerer, K.a
• **(16) Re-Designing of Existing Pharmaceuticals for Environmental Biodegradability: A
Tiered Approach with β-Blocker Propranolol as an Example(Article) by Rastogi T, Leder C and
Kummerer K
• (17) Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy Volume 2, 1 December 2015, Pages 31-36
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Putting benign by design into practice-novel concepts for green and sustainable pharmacy:
Designing green drug derivatives by non-targeted synthesis and screening for
biodegradability(Article) by Leder C, Rastogi T and Kummerer K
• (18) SC Advances Volume 5, Issue 1, 2015, Pages 27-32
A sustainable chemistry solution to the presence of pharmaceuticals and chemicals in the
aquatic environment-the example of re-designing β-blocker Atenolol(Article) by Ratogi T,
Leder C and Kummerer K

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Highlights of the paper “Sustainable Chemistry: A Solution to the Textile Industry in a Developing
World” authored by Ullhas Nimkar.

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1. The textile industry uses about 8000 chemicals at various manufacturing steps, which can
contaminate the natural water bodies due to indiscriminate discharge and inadequate
management. With a population of 7 billion and an average of 7 kg/person clothing
consumption, the chemical usage is to the tune of 5 billion kilograms.

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2. The end- of- fate of these chemicals, whether in wastewater or end-of-life of articles has not
been adequately studied so far. A lot of these chemicals can breakdown into harmful
metabolites. For example, C.I. Disperse Red 151 (relatively harmless) can break down and

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release aniline (suspected carcinogen).
3. The textile industry has various initiative to control the use and discharge of hazardous
chemicals in their supply chain, such as Restricted Substances List (RSL) and the recent ZDHC

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(Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals) Program, which was a response to the Greenpeace
‘Detox’ campaign. The ZDHC MRSL (Manufacturing Restricted Substances List) endeavors to
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establish limit values for hazardous substances in commercial chemical formulations.
4. Besides these initiatives, long- term sustainable chemistry solutions will be the way forward
for the textile industry to address the problem. These could be in terms of use of bio-waste
sources (such as Earth Colors from Archroma), biodegradable chemicals (such as Clay) or
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techniques such as Digital coloration, where there is no water usage or waste discharge.
5. Apart from these direct problems from textiles manufacturing, another problem the world
will face is safe disposal of used clothes, where 90% of the dyes and chemicals that are on
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the fabrics will end up in landfills and will degrade over time and leach out to the same
water bodies we are trying to preserve.
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