Inspiration
It all started in early February, 2023, when we discovered news about a textile factory illegally releasing
wastewater into a river. We were all shocked at how disgusting the reddish water looked, thinking “what if
we could eliminate this nasty liquid?”, and thus came the birth of our project-DECOLOGY. We first thought
about solving the origin of the wastewater-by making clothing manufacturing more eco-friendly, and so we
interviewed a few experts about how clothes are made, even thinking about what if we could produce our own
recycled clothing via environmental methods. However, in the process, we discovered that recycled clothes
are actually not the best way for us to solve the wastewater problem, and might even generate more
wastewater. So in the end, we settled on purifying & reducing the amount of dye factory wastewater.
Background Information
When we decided to address the issue of excessive water usage in Taiwanese textile factories, to ascertain
the severity of water resource-related issues and provide our team with a comprehensive understanding of the
relevant problems, we conducted a series of investigations through three channels: online data research,
interviews with experts in the field, and reviewing previous research papers related to the issue. As a
result of these efforts, we have reached the following conclusions.
Water Shortage (impact)
" The challenges related to water resources in Taiwan
are as daunting as those faced by countries in the
Sahara
region."
——WANG,YI-FENG,
Deputy Director-General, Water Resources Agency, Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Due to Taiwan's unique local climate factors and its inherent geographical features, the available
water
resources are insufficient for daily needs. Taiwan is even ranked 18th in the United Nations' global
list of
"water-scarce regions" due to these circumstances. What's even worse is that in recent
years,
the
increasing severity of global warming has made it increasingly difficult to predict the climate, and
typhoons are a significant source of water for Taiwan. However, global warming has caused typhoons to no
longer provide Taiwan with the water resources they used to, exacerbating Taiwan's recent water
scarcity
problems. This even led to a large-scale drought in Taiwan in 2021. Moreover, due to changes in
people's
lifestyles and habits, according to IWA statistics, Taiwan ranks eighth in the world in terms of daily
water
consumption per household, with a staggering 326 liters. According to data from the Executive Yuan of our
country, this number continues to increase every year, highlighting the tremendous demand for water in
Taiwan. Therefore, innovative methods are needed to conserve water.
Fig 1.Daily per capita domestic water consumption in Taiwan from 2011 to
2021(in
liters)
This chart depict the growth of daily per capita water consumption in Taiwan from 2011 to
2021
Water Pollution (impact)
Due to the widespread presence of textile factories across Taiwan, reports occasionally emerge from
various
regions indicating the leakage of pigments from textile dyeing and finishing plants, polluting rivers.
These
pigments not only disrupt the aesthetics of the rivers but also have a severe impact on the local
ecosystem.
As an example in 2023, in February, the New Taipei City government received reports of illegal discharge
of
wastewater containing dyes from a private company's dyeing and finishing plant into the Dongmen
Creek,
turning the creek red. In the same year, in September, in Hsinchu County, a dye leakage incident from a
textile factory turned the Desheng Creek blue and resulted in a massive fish kill, accompanied by a
pungent
odor. This raises the question of how to incentivize textile factories to reuse such wastewater within
their
facilities rather than directly discharging it, thereby mitigating environmental damage.
Textile Industry and Water Resource in Taiwan
Taiwan's water resources allocation can be categorized into three main types: domestic water supply,
agricultural water usage, and the third-largest, industrial water consumption, accounting for
approximately
10%. Within industrial water usage, the textile industry ranks fifth in terms of water consumption and is
classified as a high-water-consuming sector. This highlights the considerable impact of the textile
industry
on water resources in Taiwan. Therefore, we believe that initiating water-saving measures within the
textile
industry can have a significant positive impact on Taiwan. Subsequently. To gain a deeper understanding of
the clothing production process in textile factories, we interviewed with some professors of biology and
textiles in CSMU, FCU and PCCU. After those interviews, we also met with the director of R&D of Far
Eastern
New Century, which is an important recycling textile corporation in Taiwan. According to him, After the
dyeing and finishing of clothing at Shinkong Company textile factories, multiple extensive water washes
are
required, with each wash consuming three tons of water. The reason these waters cannot be reused is due to
the presence of residual dyes in the used water. Repeated washing may lead to contamination of the
original
colors of the clothing. If we can effectively remove the dye from the wastewater, the company will be able
to confidently reuse the wastewater for cleaning purposes, thereby achieving water conservation,
preventing
wastewater discharge from polluting the environment, and also saving on the company's water resource
expenses. And Taiwan has many worldwide famous textile companies, which means our research can apply to
relative industry conveniently and also promote local development of decolorizing technology.
Our team members met with Professor Lin in Feng Chia University.
We visited the textile factory of Shinkong Textile and met with their
engineers.
After these meetings, we confirmed that Most of the world's big brand clothing companies
still have
not applied the technology of decomposing textile wastewater to the actual production line. And
it still needs new ways to solve the efficiency and decolorization problem in recycling technology.
Inspired
by these thoughts, we decided to have further discussion and research and try our best to solve the
problems
of water scarcity in Taiwan and wastewater pollution from the textile industry by synthetic biology
technology.
