Investigation of the energy consumption and emission for a readymade garment production and assessment of the saving potential

Abstract

Garment products are international trade items and essential consumption items. The readymade garment industry of Bangladesh is the second largest garment exporter in the world. The garment industry of Bangladesh consumes one-third of the country's total industrial energy. Such industry consumes significant energy and contributes greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere. Assessment of energy consumption and GHG emission of garment products helps to understand the baseline status of the production and benchmarking the energy and emission leveling of the product. This paper aims to investigate the energy consumption and GHG emissions of readymade garment (T-shirt) production in Bangladesh. Gate-to-gate production stages have been considered for the investigation. The strategies for the energy and GHG emission-saving potential have been also analyzed. The result showed that the total energy consumption in terms of natural gas, oil, and electricity found are 15,105 m³, 49.93 kg, and 36,265 kWh respectively per day. The total CO₂ emission found is 56.65 tons per day. The specific energy consumption found is 12 MJ/piece and the specific emissions of the CO₂, CO, CH₄, NOx, and SOx are 0.94 kg/piece, 1.69 gm/piece, 3.53 gm/piece, 4.1 gm/piece, and 0.89gm/piece, respectively. The proposed strategies could save energy in the machinery section in the range of 22–70%. The energy saving potential of 25% is possible in the steam generation sector by employing the proposed electric steam generator. The steam generation section gives the highest CO₂ emission and the compressor section gives the lowest emission. The specific energy consumption and carbon footprint of Bangladesh-manufactured garments are in very close agreement with the literature studied.