● With growing concerns over pollution and environmental integrity, the material wastes generated in textile and apparel sectors have come sharply into focus.
Introduction
● Annually, 0.5 million tonnes of microfibres are dumped into water bodies, contributing a significant chunk of the total microplastics-related water pollution.
● Owners of spinning mills as well as OEM manufacturers, suppliers of spinning cans and other stakeholders need to take up the responsibility
Understanding the Different Types of Waste in Spinning Mills
● The ‘useful’ wastes can be applied in open-end spinning processes, count yarn coursers, and related operations. The ‘non-useful’ wastes cannot be reused – but there is the possibility of using them as fertilisers.
● Once the different types of wastes are identified, managing them optimally becomes a lot more simple.
● For efficient waste management, it is also important to distinguish between ‘hard waste’ and ‘soft waste’.
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The waste material generated as by-products of the day-to-day activities at mills can broadly be classified as ‘useful’ and ‘non-useful’.
● Strippings, broken sliver, webs and lap ends are obtained as waste products during different stages of spinning – are known as the ‘clean waste material’ and typically have >95% of ‘good fibre ratio’.
Good Fiber Ratio in Clean Waste & Dirty Waste
2.
● On the other hand, the good fibre ratio of the waste material generated during carding and blowroom processes is significantly lower – ranging from a minimum of 35% to a maximum of 55%. Filter strippings can have good fibre content of upto 80%.
● The material that has relatively high waste fibre should ideally be used in coarse/medium coarse rotor yarns.
● In order to effectively manage the different types of wastes, mills have to adopt a customised set of procedures.
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Maintaining Steady Yarn Retention Levels
● For waste control and reuse in mills, the importance of establishing a steady yarn realisation percentage (YR%) cannot be overemphasised.
● Three key factors – the expected quality of yarn, cotton & cotton trash levels, and the machinery used – determine this YR% figure. The YR% is different for combed counts and carded counts.
● Comber noil, usable waste, card waste, yarn waste and mixing trash are some of the parameters that are used to calculate the YR%. It also has to be kept under consideration that the YR% calculation has to be done separately for mills that reuse waste material in the mixing, and for those that do not.
5. The Need for Waste Processing Machinary
● This is where the need for waste processing machinery comes into the picture. Premier machines, willow machines, thread extractors and pickering waste openers are some commonly used machine tools used for soft waste processing.
● Hard waste processors work differently, by converting the waste material into a fibrous and loose matter.
● Over the last half a decade or so, the trend of installing advanced waste spinning units at mills has become more & more prominent.
● Irrespective of whether spinning wastes are reused or have to be sold/disposed of, they have to be systematically pre-processed.
‘Tandem carding’ is a technique that can be adopted to increase cleaning efficiency levels by upto 7%.
● In addition, mill workers can also make use of perforated undercasings –as well as increase the licker-in speed – to minimise wastes and optimise waste management processes.
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● Various types of wastes are generated during the carding phase in spinning mills, like sliver cut/breaks, flat strips, droppings, filter waste material and others.
● For reducing neps and eliminating seed coats, maintaining high cylinder speeds (with high flats) is also effective. Generally though, focusing on the licker-in area is imperative for card cleaning.
6. Waste Management at the Carding Stage
● Apart from bringing down the cop rejection figures and ensuring smooth material handling, adoption of systematic winding and ring frame practices are also proven methods of hard waste control in mills.
● Dedicated waste investigation lies at the heart of the waste management strategies devised by any spinning mill.
7. Waste Recording & Controlling Hard Waste
● Accurate calculation of waste stock is extremely important to minimise ‘invisible losses’ and inefficient waste handling.
● The waste percentage has to be calculated by considering all the shifts and the machine production volumes.
● Due care, however, has to be taken to ensure that the quality of the final yarn is not adversely affected.
● Mechanical problems and/or process-related problems also lead to too
● Between the comber and the cards, the number of reversals should be fixed at an even number – while the amount of pre-combing draft can also be increased, in order to bring about a significant reduction in wastes.
● With comber wastes contributing more than 15% of the total cotton waste material in mills, proper waste-management is hugely important at this stage.
8. Waste Management at the Combing Stage
- From an expert
Jumac smart can technology is presented in a comprehensive and user-friendly way to facilitate the operations. Utilization of this smart can technology will be a core competence of the mills in the near future, adding a competitive edge.
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