China Textile Magazine Article: For Beautiful Mountains and Water
Posted below with the permission of the author, Xu Huan, is the English translation of an interview of NRDC Global Environment and Health Program Director, Dr. Linda Greer, which appeared in China Textile Magazine‘s June issue:
For Beautiful Mountains and Water
–An interview with NRDC Global Environment and Health Program Director, Dr. Linda Greer.
Written by Xu Huan
China Textile: In your 30 years of environmental protection experience, what do you find are the differences between the textile industry and other industries? What are the challenges to environmental protection in the textile industry?
Linda: In most other industries, water is mainly used in the cooling process—where water is heated, but the water quality remains unchanged—however, given their production features, textile mills not only guzzle water, but also contaminate it. Textile mills use water in the dyeing and rinsing processes, the result to process water being that it is polluted. The most damaging pollutants contained within discharged water are oxygen-depleting molecules. When discharged into rivers, these molecules absorb available oxygen, thereby damaging the flora and fauna. What’s more, the hazardous heavy metals and chemicals contained in the dye threaten the environment and drinking water further downstream, which poses a challenge for treatment.
China Textile: What does the future of RSI (Responsible Sourcing Initiative) hold? How many plants can be changed?
Linda: Our plan is to encourage a few hundred mills to join our initiative. The short-term goal is to work with 20 mills in Changshu, or about 20% of all the dyeing and finishing mills in the city. We want to make Changshu “The Best Practice City,” so 20 mills could be representative. While these projects are underway, we will also work on facilities in other cities, but this work will depend on the interest of multinational buyers in those facilities.
China Textile: If more and more factories join this endeavor, will NRDC still cover the expert consulting fees?
Linda: In reality, our resources for paying the experts’ fees are limited, but we have worked out a solution: Training. We may train the companies to test and evaluate some parts of the process themselves. And for mills in Changshu, there may only be a few mills that need experts to do testing and evaluation. Training is a kind of capacity building, so even if we had abundant resources to pay the consulting fees, training is very beneficial. Actually, we do hope that we will find ourselves short of resources, because this would mean that our project was getting bigger and bigger.
China Textile: China’s textile industry covers cotton, wool, jute and silk, yet RSI got its start in a very specialized production cluster. How can RSI cover dyeing and finishing mills that manufacture these different sorts of products?
Linda: This is, indeed, an issue that we had contemplated for a long time before the project kicked off. The ten best practices that we are now advocating are universally applicable. The major differences in the manufacturing of cotton, wool, jute and silk lie in their dyeing and processing, so we are focusing on the supplementary systems, such as steam, hot water, etc. which exist in all of these processes. The proposal does not touch upon specific chemicals; rather it focuses on the supporting system of the whole factory. The other reason we avoid chemicals is that the mills are very sensitive to the formula of these printing pastes and dyes and are reluctant to disclose more details. However, they are much more open about the supporting systems, such as the steam valves. In the future, we will begin to touch upon the process aspect, but we will not do it in the beginning stage. Currently, we still need to begin with the most basic supplementary measures.
China Textile: Will the achievements of Ten Best Practices be embedded in the supply chain policy of buyers?
Linda: This is exactly what we aim to achieve—embedding our practice experience into their purchasing policies. But this is an issue we will deal with in the future. In the upcoming year, one of our primary tasks is to study the supply chain policies of these international buyers and try to figure out which areas of these policies can be changed to reflect our experience. The first step is “what,” i.e. figuring out what is happening, and the second step is “how,” i.e. how to make it happen. In the first step, we will help mills improve and make progress in energy efficiency and environmental protection to help them lower costs. This is the cornerstone that will allow us to go ahead with the second step, talking with buyers and incorporating these achievements into their supply chain policies.
China Textile: You have been dedicated to environmental protection over the years and you have come all the way to China from the US. Do you have any special faith?
Linda: I have been in love with nature ever since I was little. This sentiment has always been present. When I was in college, I chose environmental studies as my major. As the manufacturing industry moved to China, the country’s environmental challenges got more and more serious. I came with the pollution and I follow wherever pollution goes. I have twenty pictures depicting China’s beautiful mountains and rivers; protecting them is our ultimate objective, so I’ve made them the background on my computer monitor to inspire my work in China.
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