Mill Memo: Inside Bangladesh and India Manufacturers’ Eco Efforts
Denim mills are cleaning up jean production, and one of their moves is evolving raw material choices. Wood-based TENCEL™ fibers offer a lower impact alternative that comes with the added benefit of improved softness and durability.
Here, executives from Beximco, Bhaskar Denim, KG Denim, KG Fabriks and NZ Denim Limited discuss how they are using TENCEL™ Lyocell and their climate action strategies.
BEXIMCO
Junaid Safdar, chief operating officer
Carved in Blue: Could you give an overview of your latest collections that include TENCEL™ fibers including REFIBRA™ technology?
Junaid: Beximco’s latest fabric collections are mainly with TENCEL™ fibers—including REFIBRA™ technology and its blends—due to enhanced sustainable values and beauty of softness. We give more value to TENCEL™ x REFIBRA™ products by adding sustainable additives like salt-free dyeing, less water dyeing, smart indigo, natural dyeing, laser-friendly ring dyeing, organic cotton, BCI cotton, EcoMade T400, DualComfort, recycled cotton, recycled and biodegradable polyester, hemp, linen and ECOVERO™ Viscose by partnering with world-renowned brands and suppliers like Lenzing, Recover, Invista, Lycra, CiCLO, Creora, DSM Dyneema, Fulgar, Marmara and Unifi.
At Beximco, our Water is Life & Natura product line is based on the most sustainable fabrics and we have a series of products including TENCEL™ REFIBRA™ fibers.
Our Hybrids collection of super-soft fibers is blended by using different yarn and construction to pamper the softness and comfort of our products.
Zero Cotton is revolutionary fabrics made of low-impact cotton-touch man-made fiber that looks, feels and wears similar to cotton.
Nothing should go wasted in apparel during pre- or post-production, therefore Reborn is born to address a line that uses different sorts of recycling materials side-by-side with TENCEL™ x REFIBRA™.
Advance Rainbow is a sulphur-based advanced dye method that saves water with the lowest environmental impact.
In Transparent Hues, fabrics and yarns are dyed using less water with lower environmental impact against the conventional dyeing process.
Our Laser Ready concept is developed for the latest laser and ozone-friendly laundries that reduce the EIM.
Recently, Beximco engineered a 100 percent recycled X TENCEL™ REFIBRA™ fabrics collection.
Carved in Blue: Are you currently incorporating TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo Color technology or matte TENCEL™ into your denim?
Junaid: Beximco is always looking for sustainable product solutions and focused on developing a collection of fabrics with sustainable environment-friendly fibers. Recent launches from Lenzing—TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo Color technology and matte TENCEL™ fibers—are a great addition to the sustainable products. We believe these fibers not just enhance existing products’ face value with more beauty, but also impact positively by adding value towards sustainable fashion.
With the innovative development of TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo Color technology from Lenzing, we can get unmatched benefits and more in less time, with a one-step pigment indigo fiber dyeing process and TENCEL™ fiber gives unmatched benefits towards sustainability. In Beximco, with the addition of Jeanologia ozone finishing and Jeanologia laser process, we have added more beauty and value to the end product.
Matte TENCEL™ combines functionality with aesthetics and less shine, and gives denim fabrics a new life with additional benefits to use the same beauty and softness for men’s fabrics.
Carved in Blue: What top three things is your mill doing to combat climate change?
Junaid: Beximco’s vision is to transform cleaner production practices through sustainable raw materials and processes using renewable energy with traceability by adopting the 5R approach: reduce, reuse, recycle, recover and restore.
Recover and Beximco have signed a multi-year agreement to provide a collaborated end-to-end solution for design, development, production and sustainability demands in the fashion apparel industry with a capacity of 60 MT per day recycling at the biggest recycling plant in Bangladesh. According to the Higg MSI, Recover recycled cotton fiber generously outperforms virgin equivalent fibers, conventional cotton and organic cotton, across all five impact categories: global warming potential, eutrophication, water scarcity, fossil fuel depletion and chemistry. O.01 kg of Recover recycled cotton saves 14,740 liters of water, 56 kWh energy, 1.1 kg pollutants, 23 kg CO2 emissions and 10.5 m2 land use. Beximco and Recover allows for a closed-loop and truly sustainable fashion industry, rated as number one on Higg’s index.
We call our Beximco industrial park the “Lungs Of Gazipur” because of more than 300,000 trees in our boundaries, making it the only USGBC Certified LEED green campus in Bangladesh. It contributes about 1,210 MT CO2e reduction and distributes about 500 trees to local communities. Its rainwater harvesting system stores up to 87,337.6 M3 RWH annually from natural rain and reused in production. An effluent treatment plant has a 450 M3 biological treatment moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR) technology design by SSI. A heat recovery exhaust gas boiler offers an annual savings of 19.3 million M3 natural gas and a reduction of 37,250 MT CO2e gas emissions. A reverse osmosis plant 150 M3—a work in progress—offers 30 percent of total capacity. In renewable energy, a 50 KW solar energy plant (Beximco Washing), plus 20 KW existing, plus 100 KW proposed for a new solar energy plant project has contributed to the electricity resources.
We’re also using sustainable machinery and processes. Advanced Denim + Salt-Free from Archroma is a sustainable dyeing process with maximum results and minimum resources, 92 percent less water, 30 percent less energy and 87 percent less cotton waste as compared to the traditional process. We use aniline-free indigo from Archroma. Aniline is a potentially hazardous chemical precursor for indigo dyes that is essential for making the traditional blue jeans worn throughout the world.
Smart indigo liquifies indigo through the sustainable process by using the world’s smartest innovative electrolytes technology without using hydro and NaOH. Salt-free and waterless dyeing uses organic products instead of hydro and NaOH to achieve a salt-free sustainable dyeing process for sustainable production. Jeanologia ozone finishing is waterless de-sizing, fading and cleaning. Ultrasonic technology finishing is an exclusive smart technology that saves 20-30 percent water, and has a reduced usage of chemicals. Smart foam washing is a low-impact and modern laundry process with innovative sustainable, authentic look, high-efficiency production, less usage of water, energy, chemicals and manpower.
Our central auto dosing system at the washing facility is the first auto dosing system in Bangladesh, which eliminates human error, maintains accuracy and saves chemicals. We also use Jeanologia’s laser and blue scan. With the help of laser-ready fabrics specially designed for the laser room, we eliminate usage of potassium permanganate, stones and hand scraping without losing the authentic garment look.
BHASKAR DENIM
India
Rai Jain
Carved in Blue: Could you give an overview of your latest collections that include TENCEL™ fibers including REFIBRA™ technology?
Rai: We are blending TENCEL™ with inputs including hemp, recycled polyester, viscose and EcoGold polyester in weights from 9.25 to 11.75 oz.
Carved in Blue: Are you currently incorporating TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo Color technology or matte TENCEL™ into your denim?
Rai: Presently, we haven’t added the above fibers in our collection. We will surely strengthen our collection to add products of these fibers in near future.
Carved in Blue: What top three things is your mill doing to combat climate change?
Raj: We are promoting the following in our products: our Mantra Blu Concept, which uses less water for dyeing; the circular economy and sustainable and bio-degradable fiber blends.
KG DENIM
India
Carved in Blue: Could you give an overview of your latest collections that include TENCEL™ fibers including REFIBRA™ technology? Are you currently incorporating TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo Color technology or matte TENCEL™ into your denim?
KG Denim: KG Denim recently developed a matte TENCEL™ Lyocell along with Lenzing to make indigo-dyed lyocell denim fabrics less shiny, which is getting a successful response in the U.S. and European markets.
Another sustainable article which is going carbon-neutral with a “reduce-engage-offset” approach, which helps to reduce the product’s carbon footprint.
We are currently developing TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo Color technology for the upcoming seasons.
Carved in Blue: What top three things is your mill doing to combat climate change?
KG Denim: More than 90 percent of our denim fabrics will be produced with recycled raw material contents.
We’re also ensuring environmental sustainability through zero discharge, resource conservation, wastage reduction and prevention of pollution.
Finally, there is recovery and reuse of byproducts generated in the process, thus 100 percent of our denim fabrics are produced by using recycled water.
KG FABRIKS
India
Carved in Blue: Could you give an overview of your latest collections that include TENCEL™ fibers including REFIBRA™ technology?
KG Fabriks: In our latest collection, we have a wide range of 100 percent TENCEL™ and TENCEL™-cotton blends from 4-7 oz.
Also, we have tri-blend TENCEL™s, like TENCEL™/cotton/elastane and TENCEL™/spun poly/elastane in the weight range of 8-10 oz.
For a few of our customers, we are sampling TENCEL™-linen blends, too.
We have done few trials in REFIBRA™, but have yet to get orders from our buyers.
Carved in Blue: Are you currently incorporating TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo Color technology or matte TENCEL™ into your denim?
KG Fabriks: We are not incorporating these technologies as of now, as our GreenCo certified green denim process guarantees a most sustainable approach to the indigo dyed denim we produce.
We are also GreenPro certified by Confederation of Indian Industries, promoted by Global Ecolabeling Network.
Carved in Blue: What top three things is your mill doing to combat climate change?
KG Fabriks: We are a Zero Liquid Discharge and Zero Solid Discharge plant.
Close to 60 percent of the energy is derived from renewable energy sources like solar, wind and biomass.
We use much less water—less than 15 liters per kilogram of denim fabric manufactured. Our water savings is equivalent to fulfilling the everyday drinking water needs of a city with a population of 800,000 approximately.
Our proprietary technologies iWash and iTop ensure a very good dye update and hence result in a considerable reduction in our chemical and carbon footprints.
NZ DENIM LIMITED
Bangladesh
Jasim Uddin, project director
Carved in Blue: Could you give an overview of your latest collections that include TENCEL™ fibers including REFIBRA™ technology?
Jasim: NZ Denim has developed a new range of TENCEL™ fabrics with blending partner Sifryarn fiber. This new range of denim is specially designed for ladies wear with smooth, soft touch and is highly durable with the silky surface of indigo fabrics. The specialty of Sifryarn fiber is extreme softness, and with the blending of TENCEL™ or REFIBRA™, it will make it twice as soft. With each home laundry wash, the softness of the fabric will increase. NZ Denim have a complete range of fabric weights from 7-12 oz. for tops and bottoms in this concept.
Carved in Blue: Are you currently incorporating TENCEL™ Modal with Indigo Color technology or matte TENCEL™ into your denim?
Jasim: NZ Denim is currently not using modal, but in TENCEL™, we are doing a good number of production with indigo color every month. We are in the process to give a new concept collection with matte TENCEL™, and very soon we will come with our matte collection.
Carved in Blue: What top three things is your mill doing to combat climate change?
Jasim: NZD is aggressively working on sustainability for a green earth. NZ Denim is coming very soon with a new range of sustainable, new denim variety with the new concept Grow Green (A2G Denim)—completely sustainable and hazardous-free denim fabrics with almost 95 percent less water usage and 20 percent of chemical saving during the manufacturing process and certified from C2CPII. We have started on a new era of Denim Net Zero Carbon (NZC) to work on renewable energy resources to decrease CO2. Moreover, we have taken part in UNICEF’s program to compensate 10 percent of denim production initially on Net Zero Carbon (NZC) via purchasing carbon credits and have a goal to make the NZ Denim plant as a 100 green plant with ZDD and NZC.
