Key Note Speech:

Wastewater Recycling and Reuse in the Textile Industry,

Challenges and Possibilities
Dr. Seyed-Mansour Bidoki,
Associate Professor, Color and Polymer Chemistry
Textile Department, Yazd University, Iran
Guest Professor at the Faculty of Textile Engineering and Design, Istanbul Technical University
smbidoki@yazd.ac.ir bidoki@itu.edu.tr

Textile industry is one of the major water consuming industries with near 93 billion m3 per annum which is
almost 4% of the global fresh water consumption (including cultivation of natural fibers). It consumes around
80 to 150 liters of water per kilogram of the processed fabric depending on the nature of the fibrous materials
present in the textile goods (cotton, wool, nylon, polyester etc.). Most of the freshwater used in the textile
applications turns into industrial wastewater containing a wide range of toxic chemicals and colorants.
Therefore, Textile industry can be also named as one of the largest producer of highly polluted wastewater
discharging lots of coloring agents and toxic chemicals into the environment. The wastewater discharged from
textile factories contain biodegradable and non-biodegradable materials such as dyes, dispersants, salts,
leveling agents etc. These effluents are usually ends up and discharged into water receiving bodies in the
environment which can drastically modify the physicochemical and biological nature of the receiving
environment.
Environmental protocols forces textile industries to plan for wastewater treatment and management systems
before discharging their effluent into the environment. To minimize groundwater extraction and environmental
pollutions, it is very important to treat, recycle and reuse the industrial wastewater in the textile production
cycle as much as possible. Also need to follow the “3R” system, which means Reduce-Reuse-Recycle. Zero
Liquid Discharge (ZLD) approach for the textile effluents is the ultimate goal of the environmental protecting
organizations which are currently very expensive to build and not very economical for individual Textile
factories. Recycling and reusing the wastewater from the actual washing, dyeing and printing procedures is
the only response to the nowadays environmental pollution and water scarcity problems in the Textile industry.
There are very big challenges in convincing the textile factory managers to use the recycled water unless there
will be enough evidence and experiments on reusing the recycled wastewater with no negative effect on the
quality of the Textile products. Introducing a cost effective and affordable wastewater recycling process which
can work with everyday effluents released from the textile factories is another very important issue that needs
to be handled.
Recently a patented wastewater recycling system was introduced by Dr. Bidoki capable of recycling more than
90% of the wastewater in an economically accepted manner. The system is successfully installed in different
Textile dyeing, printing and finishing factories manufacturing synthetic and cellulosic based fabrics. The new
system can recycle more than 90 percent of the wastewater in a form that can be directly used in the washing,
finishing and even in the dyeing procedures especially in medium to dark shades. The system has already been
installed in Polyester dyeing and also Cellulosic dyeing and printing factories, Jean stone washing units and
also a Denim Dyeing plant. During the present speech at the 11th ULPAS symposium, you will have the chance
to see videos and photos of this new approach and also to know what are the other systems and solutions
available in the global textile industry for helping the Textile manufacturers to move towards a low polluting
and low water consuming industry which is essential for the continuation of their main industrial activities.