Development of a novel process-level water footprint assessment for textile production based on modularity

Abstract

Serious regional water scarcity and pollution of wastewater have become a focus of public attention. As a large producer and exporter, Chinese textile and garment industry has not yet developed beyond high water consumption and pollution. The key to overcoming this challenge is to assess how much water is being consumed and how much wastewater is being generated. Water footprint assessment for textile production is helpful in solving this issue. Due to the long production chain and scarce data in textile production, a quickly and easily accounting for the process-level water footprint remains an international problem. This paper established a novel process-level water footprint assessment for the textile industry based on modularity. Firstly, the water footprint unit was defined and the water footprint assessment for each unit was discussed. Secondly, the water footprint unit encoding was determined by using location, scale, product-category, process and technology codes. What’s more, the reuse and assembly methods were proposed. It was intended to be practical and effective based on 80 representative dyeing and printing factories in China. Compared with the old ones, the new approach showed two advantages by the case study of cotton fabrics. The results for different products and processes can be compared. Through such comparisons, their causes, and influencing factors can be analysed. The most promising water-saving opportunities can be found, and measurements can be taken to eliminate wastewater discharge and pollution. Besides, when the water footprint database is established, it is fast and easy to reuse the water footprint unit and only needs to collect data which cannot be found in the database. The assessment makes full use of the database and cuts down double counting. Usage of a limited set of modules to create unlimited product variants. The benefits of this assessment will become stand out obviously as more and more water footprint units are added into the database.