Environmental issues in Scouring of Wool

Water is used to clean, dye, apply chemical finishes to fabrics and to rinse the treated fibres. Wool fibers are hydrophilic and can absorb moisture and water almost one-third of its own weight. Wet processing of textile materials uses large quantities of water, energy and a considerable amount of time. Almost all textile wet processes involve the use of chemicals and processing auxiliaries like phosphates, sulphates, alkalies, acids, heavy metals which result in contamination of the water used. The resultant waste water creates serious ecological effluent problems which resulted in developing bio-friendly textile processes and products. This study mainly focuses on the scouring of selected wool fibres using bio friendly cleaning agent which has no toxic chemicals or acids. The process also involves a natural basic easy method to clean wool fibres before further processing and the same was accepted by Central Sheep Wool Research Institute (CSWRI). The result focused on two ways: one which produced clean eco-friendly wool fibres without any toxic chemicals and acids. Second the effluent waters was also tested for their characteristics against the standards of effluent waters BIS IS:2490 (PART- I), PCB NORMS TESTING (BIS) PUBLIC SEWERS which produced fruitful biological results that will not affect the flora and fauna ecological balance of the earth nationally and internationally.