Section 4. TEXTILE WASTES
MULTIPROCESS TREATMENT OF TEXTILE WASTEWATER
Ahmed Hamza, Associate Professor
Department of Environmental Health
Mohamed F. Hamoda, Assistant Professor
Department of Sanitary Engineering
Alexandria University
Alexandria, Egypt
INTRODUCTION
Recently, there has been a great upsurge of pubdc interest in the problems related to
industrial podution in Egypt. Reliance of industry on the abdity of water bodies, especiady
lake Maruit, to assimdate waste loads has long been a widespread practice in the Alexandria
region. However, the assimdative capacity of the lake is rapidly declining due to the discharge of perdurable podutants associated with industrial effluents.
Textde finishing plants receive special attention as their effluents usually contain highly
polluting wastes from sizing, kierring, desizing and dyeing processes. The "National Textde"
plant in Alexandria discharges untreated wastes to lake Maruit at an alarming rate of 15,000
m3/day.
The National Textde Company considered in this study is basically a finishing plant
where spun yarns are processed for weaving and finishing operations. The various processing operations are dlustrated in Figure 1. About 360 tons of starch are used annually for
the sizing operations and approximately the same amount is discharged later with the
desizing effluent. Enzyme desizing is employed in this plant. Both desizing and scouring
are the largest podution sources at the plant. Dyes used in the plant are mainly reactive,
vat pigment azoic and sulfur dyes. In conjunction with the specific dyeing processes, auxd-
iaries as turky red od formasol, sodium dichromate, sodium nitrite and sulfite are usually
used.
This study has been initiated as part of a major monitoring program with the fodowing
specific objectives: (1) characterization of wastewater from the textde finishing plant;
(2) establishment of the treatabdity parameters of textde effluents; and (3) assessment of
process alternatives for the treatment of textde wastewaters.
FINL FABRIC
FUMISHNG      OYEING
PICKING
DYEING
J STARCH I JFRiNG I |
F| SIZING   |  FJvyASHINGj
i'NG I
Figure   1.  Textile  finishing  at National Textile
Company.
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