New bleaching system could save trillions of litres of water
28/06/2010
The bleaching system, called Gentle Power Bleach, was introduced to the textile pretreatment market in March 2009. As opposed to conventional bleaching systems, the new system contains enzyme-based bleaching technology from Genencor. Tests to assess its impact on the environment were carried by testing and research provider Quantis International. On completing the analysis, the US director of Quantis, Jon Dettling, said: “Although the cotton pretreatment processing parameters will differ across the globe, we found a substantial advantage for Gentle Power Bleach among each of the many environmental impact categories that we tracked.”
He went on to offer the example of water savings, saying that if the new system were used on the roughly 26 million tonnes of cotton produced globally, a 2007–2008 statistic, the savings in freshwater consumption globally could be in the range of 10 trillion litres of water annually, which is more than 1000 litres annually for each person on earth. “This result depends strongly on the available information regarding cotton irrigation, but nevertheless illustrates the large potential benefits of the technology,” he added. “Significant reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions are another benefit of this process. It is estimated that it has the potential to reduce global carbon emissions by 10–30 million tonnes annually.”
Huntsman Textile Effects president, Paul Hulme, commented: “Both companies [Huntsman and Genecor] see this technology as a critical step towards a more sustainable textile processing industry. Our vision is much aligned with the one from Genencor, and that is that we need alternative solutions today to tackle the critical challenges that future generations will face if we don’t act now.”
The companies pointed out that the new bleaching system is ISO 14044 compliant, as has undergone peer review. In addition, the results of the Quantis International tests were validated in production using existing production sites and processes.
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