Textile-producing nations unite to reduce chemical waste
The Governments of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Viet Nam have joined forces to fight chemical pollution today, launching a joint $43-million programme to manage and reduce hazardous chemicals in their textile industries.
Employing over 10 million people, the four nations’ textile sectors account for near 15% of global clothing exports. However, the economic benefits of the industry come at a cost, with the sector being one of the world’s major users of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a family of approximately 12,000 synthetic chemicals which do not break down and accumulate in the environment, threatening human and ecosystem health.
Wet processing factories, where materials are turned into fabrics through bleaching, printing, dyeing, finishing and laundering typically use 0.58 kg of chemical inputs for every 1 kg of fabric produced. These compounds leak into the environment at all phases of the textile lifecycle, from production to use, disposal and recycling.
