& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

APPAREL INDUSTRY

Time for green garment

Inam Ahmed
As international media made news of jerseys made of recycled plastic bottles for the football World Cup, a Bangladeshi company had the same job done for the Winter Olympics held six months ago in Vancouver, Canada.
As rich economies are coming out of recession, green apparels made of recycled materials are getting a revival, even for the low-cost category items.
“Environmentalism is now deeply rooted in the consumer mindset and public policy arena,” wrote Harvard Business Review last month. “Research suggests that green consumerism has slowed in this recession, though it has not stalled. Consumers will regain confidence and use disposable
income to fully express their growing concern about climate change and the environment.”
This optimism is evident with Winners Creations Ltd, a Dhaka-based apparel sourcing company. When it sent its first batch of jackets made of fabric extracted from recycled plastic bottles, the order was for a piffling 8,000 pieces. Now they have bagged an order for 150,000 pieces of 'green' shorts and jogging suits. The company sees the prospect bright.
“We were sceptic when we had the first order, because recycled fabric is costly and it feels rough to the touch. Yet we wanted to explore the product,” Durjoy Rahman Joy, managing director ofWinners, explains how he got into the new product market. “So we went to China, one of the biggest producers
of fabric from recycled bottles.”
It was a new experience for Joy. The suppliers showed him fabrics that are as good as conventional cloths. The cost was also affordable as recycled materials could be mixed with conventional fabric at various percentages.
“We used fabric with 30 percent recycled materials and the cost was just 6.5 percent higher,” Joys says. “The consumers are willing to pay this slight increase in price.”
At this configuration, it takes a little more than three one litre plastic bottles to make enough fabric for a fleece jacket. The bottles are crushed and turned into chips. The chips are melted into polymer to make yarn. The yarns are then textured, a process that gives the yarn strength and softness.
“The environmental impact of such green fabric is enormous. By recycling every one tonne of plastic, we can save the equivalent of two persons' energy use for a year," Joy points out.
In 2009,200 billion litres of bottled water was consumed globally, generating 1.5 million tonnes of plastic waste. It took 170 million litres of oil to produce and transport the bottles.
Besides saving the environmental impact, going for new products has also uppedWinners Creations' profile.
“Buyers now look at us with confidence because they know we can produce something innovative," says Joy. “The market is big for green products and Bangladesh should make use of it. We can change our image that we only produce traditional items.”