3. About Textile Industry in Bangladesh
- The textile and clothing industries provide the single source of growth in
Bangladesh's rapidly developing economy.
- In 2016 Bangladesh held the 2nd place in producing garments just after
China.
- Sixty percent of the export contracts of western brands are with European
buyers and about forty percent with American buyers.
- Only 5% of textile factories are owned by foreign investors.
- In the financial year 2016-2017 the RMG industry generated US$28.14
billion.
- which was 80.7% of the total export earnings in exports .
- And 12.36% of the GDP
4. Environmental impact
- Textiles are one of the most problematic industries for the water sector.
- A complex mixture of hazardous chemicals, both organic and inorganic, is discharged into
the water bodies from all these industries, usually without treatment.
- The most polluting industrial units listed in 1986 included 298 textile mills, which rose to
365 units in the recent statistics of DoE.
- Around 50% of these are small-scale industries and their contributions to environmental
pollution are summarized in the Table below in terms of wastewater (m3) and biological
oxygen demand (BOD load, kg/day) discharged into the inland surface water discharged
per day.
Table: Estimated waste wader loads from textile industries of Bangladesh
Industry Public ( num) Private(num) Waste water discharge ( m3/day) Pollution load (BOD kg/ day)
Textile 20 482 40,000 26,000
5. - Industries and factories at Tongi near Dhaka regularly dump solid waste and
effluent in the nearby River Turag, polluting the water.
- Colour of water of the Turag is dark and has a strong odour.
- The number of factories polluting Turag is at least 20.
- The industries of Savar generate a large amount of effluent every day which are
being directly discharged into the surrounding land, agricultural fields, irrigation
channels and surface water and finally enter into the river.
- The water samples from point sources, upstream areas and deep tube wells were
collected and analyzed for Na, K, Mg, Ca, Fe, Cu, Cd, Cr, Pb, pH, Temperatures,
DO, BOD, COD, Total hardness, Total alkalinity, EC, Chloride, TDS, TSS.
- The industrial effluents are usually discharged into Dhalai Beel which then
entered into the Bansal River without any treatment.
- the highly concentrated heavy metals becomes harmful to fish and
microorganism of the Dhalai Beel.
- Water in the irrigation canals of the DND (Dhaka-Narayanganj-Demra) and the
Narayanganj- Narsingdi Agrani Irrigation Projects have become polluted.
6. Table 1: Composition of cotton textile mill waste*
- Wool processing, for example, creates 544 m3 per ton of wastewater,
contaminated with bacteria, chemicals, dyes, and bleaches.
- The wastewater is typically alkaline (high pH) and contains solids, oil, and
potentially toxic organics, such as phenols from dyeing, and halogenated
organics from bleaching.
- Pesticides are also sometimes used for the preservation of natural fibres,
and these are transferred to wastewaters during washing and scouring
operations.
7. Economic Impact
- 4 million workers are directly & more than 12 million inhabitants are
indirectly associated with the industry
- In FY 2014-15 RMG contributed 17.35% of the national GDP
- In FY 2013-14 Commercial banks lent 5000 crore Tk to textile sector.
- 21 million Tk was lent as export finance
- On average, every year premium paid by the RMG sector to insurance
company is about 6 million US dollars.
- RMG contributed about US 65 million dollars in FY 2013-14 to earnings of
the shipping business.
- Transport sector also gets a large share of its income from textile sector.
- Almost 80% employee of textile industry are despaired women.
8. Investment in RMG
Year Total Investment Amount in Million
US$
2010-2011 25216.34
2011-2012 26032.35
2012-2013 30125.56
2013-2014 28563.32
2014-2015 27685.28
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
Year 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015
TotalInvestmentamount
inmillionus$
Year
9. RMG contribution to export
Year Export in Million (In US$)
2010-2011 17914.46
2011-2012 19089.69
2012-2013 21515.73
2013-2014 24491.88
2014-2015 25491.4
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015
ExportinMillionUS$
Year
Export in Million (In US$)
10. The textile sector of Bangladesh has become much more
versatile and strong with time, becoming one of the main economic
force of our country. Its economic impacts shows ever rising trend
lines. Textile industry employs almost 4 million people of which 80%
are women. In socio economic aspect textile thus plays a very
important role. But as of in environmental aspect the same can not be
said. While private sector tried to gain much larger profit day after day
they gave very negligible attention to its impact on the environment.
The dyeing and recycling steps of the textile production is very harmful
for the environment specially for water and soil. Its high time textile
industry payed some attention toward environment and took necessary
steps to prevent that too. Hope that in recent future we will get to see
a much more stable and environment friendly textile sector in our
country.
