The country's readymade garment (RMG) factories have started using cutting wastes, popularly known as jhut, to run boilers amid short supply of natural gas - presently the main energy source for the boilers.
This new technology is being used, though in a limited scale, also to cut the cost of fuel, industry insiders said.
They said a good number of such boilers are imported from China and Korea while there are few local companies too started supplying such boilers to the local RMG factories.
Bright Star Engineers and Trades, a local manufacturer, has already supplied jhut-run boilers to half a dozen factories.
"The efficiency level of the less dust dischargeable and smoke-free jhut fired boilers is more than 80 per cent," Md Moshiour Rahman, managing director of Bright Star, told the FE on the sidelines of the recently-ended National Industrial Fair at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the city.
His company provided jhut-run boilers to some six RMG factories and one food processing company.
In garment factories, the boilers are mainly used in the laundries to provide steam to dry or iron the clothes, industry people said, adding that the boiler can also be used to produce hot water for heating purposes.
A couple of green garment factories in the country, certified by US Green Building Council (USGBC) and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), have also opted for such technology mainly to face the energy shortage, they noted.
"Jhut is a byproduct of garment fabrics and there is also gas shortage in the country. Considering the two aspects, we have started using this byproduct to generate heat energy as a viable solution to the problem," said Abdullah Al Mamun, deputy general manager at Crossline Factory Pvt Ltd.
The 30-line knitwear factory started using jhut-based boiler six months back mainly to reduce dependency on natural gas and reduce their expenditure, he said.
Before using jhut, the factory had to pay Tk 0.7 million as monthly gas bill while the cost significantly fell to Tk 0.1 million per month after using the fabric wastage, Mr Mamun noted.
Moreover, he said, use of such boiler is free of hassles and risks whereas jhut burning can be controlled easily, he said.
FGS Denim Wear Ltd is another factory that converted its gas-based boiler to jhut-based one as they found it cheaper and risk free, said Md Salim Miah, general manager (maintenance) at the FGS.
Industry people said that waste to energy is an emerging area to explore in the context of industrial environmental management system.
It is encouraging to note that the factories are gradually shifting from waste disposal practice to adopting waste utilisation technologies, they said, adding that the environmental hazzard, if there is any, should be taken into consideration at the same time.
