In general, water which is polluted due to usage or which is changed in its original ingredients is called waste water. Especially in the leather and fashion business, effluents in the textile industry are a serious problem. Usually the sewer system transports these textile effluents to the waste water treatment plants or to a stand alone effluent treatment plants which collect, separate and purify industrial effluents from the water.

For the manufacturing of clothes and textile fabrics for industrial purposes, big amounts of water are needed. After the manufacturing process, there are often thousands of liters of water polluted by chemicals used for textile production. However, independent from the amounts of sewage water in the textile industry, the textile production concentrates great amounts of non-environmentally friendly substances. Therefore, waste water has to be freed of these – sometimes even toxic – ingredients, sometimes even before the waste water enters a community’s sewage system.  

 

Besides dyestuffs, there are also so called tensides, acids, lye or petroleum in textile effluents which can tremendously influence the quality of water. The majority of these substances in the dyeing, tanning or printing technology for the textile industry is organic. However, there are different official rules and regulations in different countries concerning canalisation, sewing, treatment and processing of waste water. 

There are many methods and processes which can be implemented to clean and treat sewage water polluted by textile effluents in the textile fabric manufacturing process. There are mechanical-physical processes as well as chemical and biological methods, for example anaerobic and aerobic bacteria. Aerobic bacteria need oxygen to start their activity in the polluted water. When the polluting materials are decreased in the water, one has to keep in mind that it does not become alkaline. If necessary, water even has to be neutralized before. This is achieved by adding acids, lyes, gas, filtration or the certain chemicals.  

 

Depending on the kind of textile business, tanning, printing or dyeing, waste water can directly be led to the sewage system of a community’s sewage plant. Law might also force a manufacturer to be active before and free the water from parts of dangerous ingredients on site. Especially when it comes to the decolourization of waste water, this is a very time and cost intensive process. To implement processes for water saving in an industrial company, it is strongly recommended to use different kinds of water qualities for different purposes.