Tirupur textile units achieve zero liquid discharge

The Madras high court had earlier directed the dyeing and processing units in Tirupur to shut operations stating they were creating pollution

Country’s knitwear hub, Tirupur in southern Tamil Nadu, has become the first textile cluster in India to achieve zero liquid discharge (ZLD) in their units.

It may be noted, the Madras high court had earlier directed the dyeing and processing units in Tirupur to shut operations stating they were creating pollution. This had severely impacted the Rs 12,000-crore textile industry.

Tirupur Exporters Association president and chairman A Sakthivel said at present all the dyeing and processing units were using 100 per cent zero discharge technology. These units were generating more than 2,000 Mw in wind energy.

“With this development, we are sure Tirupur will bounce back to normalcy and there will be upward progress in supplies to both domestic and international markets. We will catch up by the time the global economic slowdown ends,” he stated in a release.

Both common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) and individual units were following the ZLD technology. More than 50 per cent of units were running. Before the closure order, there were 494 dyeing and 162 bleaching units while there are 16 CETPs in operation now of the 18 earlier.

On the energy front, he said the industry was facing problem in running the units and incurring more operational cost due to heavy load shedding and due to usage of diesel gensets.

The industry would explore ways and means to live up to the expectations of their sourcing people both in domestic and international markets, he said, adding the bottlenecks in the past included sudden increase in yarn prices, closure of units and the economic slowdown in their traditional markets — the US and Europe.