‘Optimise water use to ease pressure on resources’

LAHORE :World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan) in collaboration with All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) held a seminar as part of events leading up to World Water Week 2017, starting next week in Stockholm, Swed

The event was hosted at All Pakistan Textile Mills Association House and was part of the International Labour and Environmental Standards (ILES) Application in Pakistan’s SMEs project, funded by the European Union and being implemented by WWF-Pakistan in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO). 

The seminar was attended by Anis-ul-Haq, Secretary General All Pakistan Textile Mills Association, Hammad Naqi Khan, Director General WWF-Pakistan, alongside a number CEOs of various textile industries.

The seminar aimed to promote sustainable water consumption practices in largely antiquated textile sector of the country in order to address the wayward patterns of resource consumption, which leads to environmental degradation and a bigger carbon footprint. 

Speaking on the occasion, Hammad Naqi Khan called upon the participants to understand that it’s their duty to optimise the water cycle of their industries in order to ease existing pressures on water resources.

“Business as usual is no longer an option. We need to understand that water challenges we face today are intertwined and instead of being part of the problem we should be part of the solution.

With our current status of being declared a water stressed country, our primary focus should be on the strategic development of the industrial sector, especially increasing the efficiency of our textile sector with small water footprints and high added value should be our primary objective,” he said.

Anis-ul-Haq, Secretary General All Pakistan Textile Mills Association, said industries need to invest more in technologies which are water efficient, lead to zero discharge of hazardous waste and harvest water from rain.

He said water is a shared resource, and the industrial sector is equally responsible for the conservation and treatment of it. It is better to invest less on conservation in the start of the pipeline than to spend much more on treatment at the end of the pipeline.

Experts informed the audience about wastewater treatment, economics of wastewater and the different methods to treat wastewater. They emphasised learning from best practices being implemented internationally by business leaders to efficiently manage wastewater, and replicating these practices in Pakistan.