Research in Waste Treatment at
Southern Mills
R. HOBART SOUTHER, Research Consultant
Greensboro, North Carolina
The importance of waste water control and water conservation is well
recognized by alert and progressive leaders of the textile industry.
The industry is aware that the conservation of water, our most precious
natural resource, is a problem that must be solved if we are to have enough
clean water to meet the essential needs of life itself — our industrial technology, agriculture, and conservation of fish and wildlife resources, as well
as recreational facilities.
Many researchers in the past from both industry, research groups and
universities have made excellent contributions to problems in textile waste
treatment. Present studies in textile waste and other industrial waste treatment are usually carried out by the plant or industry staffs or consultants concerned with the problem.
Numerous publications pertaining to research and improved methods in
textile waste treatment indicate no other industry in the past few years has
made more progress than the textile industry in solving its problems inreduc-
ing stream pollution. This achievement has resulted largely from active
AATCC membership participation in the objectives of the National AATCC
Committee on Stream Sanitation, which was originally formed to promote,
encourage, and inspire further research in stream pollution abatement as well
as for the exchange of information among members and to cooperate in the
work of the National Technical Task Committee on Industrial Wastes. The
NTTCIW was created by Congress and is composed of representatives from
the nation's leading industries interested in solving the many difficult industrial waste problems. It cooperates with the U. S. Public Health Service and
others concerned with improving the quality of the Nation's water resources
by performing certain technical tasks pertaining to industrial waste. The
waste guides prepared by tne AATCC are examples of the tasks assumed by
the textile industries.
Realizing the importance of water-pollution control, President Eisenhower in one of the last acts of his administration called a national conference on water pollution in Washington, D. C., December 12-14, 1960, with
more than 1200 in attendance representing U.S. Public Health, research
agencies, industrial, wild life, recreation, engineering, governmental, legal
and finance groups. The theme of the conference was "Clean Water -- A
Challenge to the Nation."
The purpose of the conference was to assess the problem of water pollution to determine its effect on national welfare, and to set realistic goals for
its control.
Senator Kerr stated that greater research was an absolute necessity as a
means to find ways to abate pollution and to do it more rapidly at less cost.
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