Study on the use of fabric wastes as an energy source for boiler by incineration process

Abstract

ABSTRACT The ready-made garment industry is one of the main sources of earning foreign exchange for Bangladesh. A good amount of waste fabric is generated as a byproduct, locally called as “jhut” from this industry. Garments industry uses a boiler for generating steam for different processes of manufacturing garments like ironing finished products. Nonrenewable energies such as natural gas, diesel are mainly used as fuel for boilers. But due to the energy crisis and rising of fuel price, it is a high time to look for alternative solutions of nonrenewable energies. Contrary, garments leftover also generating wastes in different recycling/reuse processes that is harmful to the environment. Considering all these facts, the aim of this paper is to explore whether the waste fabric can be an alternative energy, comparable to gas and diesel, for boiler or not. For fulfilling the purpose of study, author finds out different indirect costs generate from shortage of fuel, yearly cost and consumption of natural gas and diesel for running a boiler, collected information about average waste fabric generated from different types of factories for instance woven (top & bottom) factory, knit factory, and sweater factory along with the source of generation, what could be possible adverse effect on environment with solutions and calculate return on investment to find out how much it is financially feasible for a factory. The study reveals that it is possible to reduce boiler operating cost, minimize consumption of natural resources as well as decrease the amount of waste fabric by installing jhut boiler.