This all apparently compared well to the washhouses of Xintang, the town in Guangdong Province, China, that claims to be the "jeans capital of the world." Each year, 200,000 garment workers in Xintang's 3,000 factories and workshops produce 300 million pairs of jeans—800,000 pairs a day. The local water treatment plant closed years ago, leaving factories to dump dye waste directly into the East River, a tributary of the Pearl River. It turned opaque; aquatic life could no longer survive. Greenpeace has reported that the riverbed contains high levels of lead, copper and cadmium. Xintang's streets are dusted blue. And many garment workers have reportedly suffered from skin rashes, infertility and lung infections.
这一切与号称“世界牛仔裤之都”的中国广东省新塘镇的洗衣房相比,简直是天壤之别。新塘有3000多家工厂和作坊,每年有20万服装工人生产3亿条牛仔裤,每天有80万条。当地的水处理厂几年前关闭了,留下工厂直接将染料废料倾倒到珠江的一条支流——珠江。结果难以理解;水生生物无法生存。绿色和平组织报告称,该河床含有高浓度的铅、铜和镉。新塘的街道一片蔚蓝。据报道,许多制衣工人患有皮疹、不孕症和肺部感染。
Eco-Friendly Finishing?
环保完成了吗?
Distressed, whiskered jeans continue to drive the global market and have been the cause of ecological and health calamity. What could be done about finishing? Surely, in our world of rapid technological advancement, there must be a way to banish the horrors I saw in the Ho Chi Minh sweatshop.
令人苦恼的是,破洞拉线牛仔裤继续推动着全球市场,并已成为生态和健康灾难的根源。如何才能完成呢?当然,在我们这个科技飞速发展的世界,肯定有办法消除我在胡志明市血汗工厂看到的恐怖。
Denim industry consultants José Vidal and his nephew Enrique Silla, based in Valencia, Spain, set out to develop a cleaner, safer three-step process called Jeanologia: lasers, which replace sandblasting, hand-sanding, and the bleaching chemical potassium permanganate (PP); ozone, which fades fabrics without chemicals; and e-Flow, a washing system that uses microscopic "nanobubbles" and cuts water usage by 90 percent.
牛仔行业顾问何塞•维达尔和他的外甥恩里克•西拉在西班牙瓦伦西亚工作,他们打算开发一种更清洁、更安全的三步工艺,名为Jeanologia:取代喷砂、手工砂光和漂白化学剂高锰酸钾的激光;臭氧会使没有化学物质的织物褪色;e-Flow是一种使用微型“纳米气泡”的洗涤系统,它可以将用水量减少90%。
Traditionally, finishing a pair of jeans requires an average of 18 gallons of water, 1.5 kilowatts of energy and 5 ounces of chemicals. In total, that equals an astonishing 92 million gallons of water, 7.5 billion kilowatts of energy (enough to power the city of Munich for a year) and 750,000 tons of chemicals each year.
传统上,完成一条牛仔裤平均需要18加仑的水,1.5千瓦的能源和5盎司的化学品。总的来说,这相当于惊人的9200万加仑的水,75亿千瓦的能源(足以为慕尼黑市提供一年的电力)和每年75万吨的化学物质。
The Jeanologia system can decrease energy consumption by 33 percent, chemicals by 67 percent, and if implemented most efficiently, water usage by 71 percent—or, as the company proudly boasts, to one glass of water per pair of jeans.
Jeanologia系统可以减少33%的能源消耗,减少67%的化学物质消耗,如果实施得最有效,可以减少71%的用水量——或者,正如该公司自豪地宣称的那样,每条牛仔裤只消耗一杯水。
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