Question H broad education necessary to understand the impact of textile engineering practices
Textile engineering is abroad field that enables students to be able to understand the impact of textile engineering practices. This is the education that focuses on multi-disciplinary and more focus on three key areas; textile product engineering. Textile production engineering deals with biomedical material, sport textiles and machine design. The information design study of textile engineering deals with supply chain inventory. It is aimed at knowledge to understand the impact of textile engineering.
Question H1 national and international standards, legislations
Textile industry is one of the largest contributors to the economy of a nation. This is because it is comprised of small and large operations which contribute to the national economy. There are many people employed in textile industry. The tax accrued from textile industry is huge for the national development. It is a major world contributor to the economy.
Textile activities have requires large volumes of water. This means that a lot of water is required to run textile industries. Chemicals are also required in the process. The processing of textiles requires a lot of water, chemicals and energy in various stages. At each stage there are waste products which end up in the destruction of our environment. The waste generation load differs because of the demand in the color and pattern of the fabric. There are many waste steams generated by textile industries which include gaseous, liquid and solid wastes. The waste products for textile industry are hazardous. The type of waste products generated by textile depends on the type of chemicals used, technology of textile processing and the type of fabric.
H2 historical evolution of textile technology
Textiles are important part of human civilization and they serve both individuals and the whole nation. Clothing is among the human basic needs. Textile is a term that covers all aspects of materials such as wool, silk, jute, rayon cotton and manmade fibers. Textile is one of the oldest innovations in human history. The first recorded textile work is the discovery of the spinning flax and wool fabrics in Swiss lake between 6th and 7th century BC. China recorded the first sericulture invention around 2640 BC which was later introduced in India in 400 AD. The Egyptians introduced the spinning linen and weaving in 3400 BC.
During industrial revolution in 18th and 19th centuries, there was invention of machines for processing natural fibres. This was a major turning point where fibre production increased. There was a discovery of rayon textile which was generated from cellulosic fibres. After this technological innovation, synthetic fibers such as acrylic, nylon, polyester were also introduced in to the market to compete with the natural fibers.
After the introduction of synthetic fibre there has been a lot of research to come up with better products from natural materials compared to manmade products. There was also improvement in production and processing methods of fabric properties and mechanization of fabrics to deliver better quality. This resulted into a lot of technological innovation in the textile industry. The mechanics and technologies in textile industry have undergone creative innovations and evolutions.
H3 global, economic, environmental and social effects
Because of textile industry has resulted into major economic, social, environment and political impact. Textile industry is the largest industry on the world which contributes to the world economy in terms of employment and production. This means that the little effect this industry has affects the world significantly. The global extraction of resources that are non-fossil was reported to be 60 billion tones in 2012. The process of making those materials into a usable form contributes about one third of the global carbon emissions. The impact of those materials shows that materials are the key drivers of environmental challenges facing the world today.
Economic impact of textile industry is very huge. In 2010 there a global production of 15 billion garments which is enough for clothing the whole world with about 20 cloths. The textile industry contributed about $1.8 trillion of revenues in the global economy. There is great revenue generated in the economy from nature textile.
Environmental impact of textile industry is evident especially in areas it is located. According to NRDC (2011), a single textile factory mill uses up to 200 tons of water for each fabric it dyes. The untreated water ends up in the river with the color that was used to dye the fabric. Gunnami and Mishra (2012) projects those 400 billion square meters of fabric will be produced by 2015. This means that about 100 million tones of fiber and other materials will be required in the process of producing this material. This rate of production and demand for textile materials means that there will be great environmental impacts. Based on rough estimates on the global consumption of electricity by the textile industry estimates that 1 billion kWh of electricity is consumed hence textile is a significant contributor of greenhouse emissions.
Social impact of apparel production can be seen as a major boaster of national development. This through export oriented business and industrialization in different countries. Textile industry employs about 400 million people globally in direct employment. Textile industry has been seen in developing countries as a means of getting many people out of poverty. For instance, in Pakistan textile takes 42.9%, Bangladesh 35%, Sri Lanka 49.2% of employment. This means that many people are employed in textile industry.
References
Gugnami, A. and A. Mishra (2012). Textile & Apparel Compendium 2012, Technopak.
Hachem, C., Bocquillon, F., Zahraa, O., & Bouchy, M. (2001). Decolourization of textile industry wastewater by the photocatalytic degradation process. Dyes and Pigments, 49(2), 117-125.
NRDC (2011) "Green Fashion: Beautiful on the Inside." Smarter Living
