ABSTRACT
A lot goes into our clothing before it reaches the racks at the department store. The textile industry uses over a million tons per year of chemical surfactants—chemicals used as detergents, foaming agents, and emulsifiers, 70 percent of which end up in wastewater. In addition, it takes over 250 pounds of water to produce a single pound of dyed and finished textile fabric. Most textile plants are classified as major sources of hazardous and toxic air emissions by the EPA, mainly because of nitrogen and sulfur oxide emissions from their boilers. “It is not uncommon to find tens and even hundreds of thousands of pounds of methyl ethyl ketone, methyl isobutyl ketone, toluene, xylene, and dimethyl formamide emitted from coating processes in a large facility,” according to Brent Smith, a professor of textile chemistry at North Carolina State University. We even use chemicals to counteract the effects of other chemicals during textile production—things like defoamers and bath stabilizers.
