Even as textile exporters of Tiruppur and Karur crib about how they were impacted by the introduction of zero liquid discharge (ZLD) norms, an Ahmedabad company has shown how the technology can be implemented at a third of the cost incurred by other competing technologies.

Arvind Envisol, a subsidiary of the $1.5-billion textile conglomerate Arvind Group, even though it is just seven years old as a company, has emerged a prime player in the ZLD market, which is considered the last-mile technology in environmental pollution mitigation.

ZLD process

It is the third component of the industrial wastewater treatment, after primary effluent treatment and water recycling technologies such as reverse osmosis, which help reclaim 70-80 per cent of water from effluent water.

The ZLD process primarily relies on evaporation technologies, which recover the remaining water from the effluent, leaving behind only salts and other chemicals that can be recycled for use.

Treating and recovering the remaining 20-30 per cent of water is very important for environment, but the available technologies are prohibitively expensive, said Dinesh Yadav, CEO of Arvind Envisol.

“While treating effluent and recovering water through reverse osmosis did help hugely in conserving water, it didn’t mitigate the environmental damage caused by the industry. This was because the 20-30 per cent water left behind had effluents in a highly concentrated form,” Yadav told BusinessLine in a telephonic interview from Ahmedabad.

How it began

Yadav said it was a pain point when Arvind Envisol was established in 2011 as a sunrise industry and he wanted to address this issue, beginning with Arvind’s own textile plant at Santej.

The company, on the look out for an efficient technology, zeroed in on a Finnish firm that had the polymeric film evaporation technology. Arvind Envisol bought out the company, which had a strong Indian connection as a scientist based in Chennai was working closely with it.

According to Yadav, the technology had three distinct advantages. First, as it was using polymeric films, there was no issue of corrosion. Second, as it could handle a lot of solids, which are often found in the sludge, there was no choking problem, which is invariably found in other similar systems. More importantly, as its energy requirement was low, its operating cost was just one-third of competing technologies, he said.

Foreign contracts

“We have currently 80 installations in India. Besides, we have given marketing or manufacturing licences to use this technology in some of the major technology countries such as Germany, Taiwan and China,” Yadav said.

Besides, its successful implementation of a 11 MLD (million litre per day) ZLD plant in Ethiopia’s Hawassa industrial complex, helped Arvind Envisol bag three more similar projects in the East African country.

“These deals have helped us grow close at 100 per cent in the last year. The growth rate is expected to be higher in the coming year as some of these projects will be commissioned, Yadav said.

The parent firm, Arvind, reaped other benefits as well. Thanks to Arvind Envisol, the Arvind has become one of the most water-efficient firms, despite being in the textile industry, which is a known water guzzler. Two of Arvind’s textile plants and its garment factory in Bengaluru are using municipal grey water as their primary source. “These plants tap mainly municipal wastewater for use, with groundwater being used only for filling the shortage,” he said.

Less water consumption

While Arvind’s Santej textile plant takes in 4 MLD water from the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation and another plant in Ahmedabad uses 1.5 MLD from the Ahmedabad Corporation, its garment factory in Bengaluru, where the system was first installed in 2016, sources 3 MLD grey water from the Bengaluru Corporation.

“In addition to conserving precious groundwater, we help these corporations save the operating cost involved in pumping and treating a sizeable quantity of wastewater,” said the Arvind Envisol chief.

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