Biological Treatment of
Textile Wastes
VERNON T. STACK, JR., Director of Research and Development
Roy F. Weston, Inc.
Consulting Engineers
Newtown Square, Pennsylvania
and
E. L. JONES, Head Engineer
T. A. A LS PA UGH,   Chemist
and
H. B. STOKES, Engineer
Engineering Department
Cone Mills Corporation
Greensboro, North Carolina
Cone Mills Corporation manufactures and finishes cotton goods in four
plants located within the city of Greensboro, North Carolina. The proximity
of the plants is such that industrial wastes can be collected into one common
waste stream. The collected wastes are to be treated in a biological treatment facility and discharged into North Buffalo Creek. The studies reported
here represent work supplementary to that done by the Research and Development Department of Cone Mills Corporation. The previous work (1) defined
many factors important to the treatability of wastes such as the general feasibility of biological treatment, pH neutralization, the effect of chromium and
the use of sewage to supply nutrients.
In the current studies, Roy F. Weston, Inc., served in a consultation capacity. Laboratory studies and analyses of samples were carried out by the
Research and Development Department of Cone Mills Corporation. Pilot
facilities were constructed and operated by Cone Mills Corporation. The
laboratory approaches and the scheduled operation of the pilot plant were done
under the direction of Roy F. Weston, Inc.
WASTE SOURCES, QUANTITIES AND CHARACTERISTICS
The four Cone Mills plants in Greensboro, North Carolina, are named
White Oak, Revolution, Proximity, and Print Works. These four plants discharge wastes from slashing, desizing, boilout, kiering, bleaching, dyeing
(including sulfur, indigo, vat, direct, developed, naphthol, and aniline)
printing, mercerizing, finishing (which includes resins, waxes, gums, fire
retardants, etc.), and the wastes from a color shop.
The general characterisitcs of the wastes are summarized in Table I. The
combined flow of wastes averages at present about three MG per working day,
or 16.4 MG per week. The average BOD of the wastes is about 500 ppm, and
the average platinum-cobalt color of the wastes is about 1, 300 ppm. Because
of large uses of sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate in the processing of
of cotton fibers, the pH of the wastes is rather high and averages 11. 5.
The data in Figure 1 show observed variations in the strength of collected
wastes before and after admixture with 10 per cent sewage by volume. Variations in the strength of the mixture illustrate that variations in the strength of
sewage was greater than variations in the strength of wastes from Cone Mills.
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