Jakarta. Asia Pacific Rayon (APR) recently said it had been making progress in driving clean manufacturing as the viscose giant achieved over 90 percent in its chemical recovery rate. And this aligns with what the ZDHC —a multistakeholder collaboration focusing on the sustainable textile industry— has been advocating. 

“Sulfur is the biggest pollutant in the viscose industry. I can say that sulfur recovery is a key performance indicator for the viscose industry,” Saleel Nayak, a general manager at APR, told a  recent ZDHC conference in Jakarta. 

APR in November 2021 also launched the APR2030, a roadmap that lays out the company’s priorities and sustainability targets for the next decade. Under this roadmap, the APR aims to achieve over 95 percent of sulfur recovery. APR reported it has reached 94 percent in sulfur recovery and is aiming to boost the numbers to 95 percent later this year.  

Saleel added: “The aspirational target for 2025 is a chemical recovery rate of 95 percent. I can say that we have achieved 94 percent in the past few months so we are close. And it is not just  meeting this target, but also going beyond.” 

APR is also aiming for 50 percent less water used in its production. Saleel said that APR’s water consumption has significantly reduced to almost 40 M³/MT VSF.  

APR has launched a Sustainability Dashboard which allows the public to see the progress of its sustainability efforts. “Sustainability is fully integrated into APR’s business strategy. [...] We make our programs transparent to our stakeholders,” Saleel said. 

APR first joined the ZDHC in October 2019. APR also took part in the wastewater trial that shaped the Man-Made Cellulosic Fibers (MMCF) wastewater guideline commissioned by  ZDHC. APR is committed to achieving aspirational-level compliance for all parameters in all three MMCF guidelines by 2025. 

The conference was a collaboration between ZDHC and the Rantai Tekstil Lestari (RTL)  association. According to RTL chairman Basrie Kamba, the global fiber-fabrics-apparel industry was worth $2.3 trillion last year. The industry is also witnessing a growing number of guidelines and standards. 

“Zero discharge is defined as optimizing chemical recovery processes in order to limit and curtail the discharge of waste substances into the environment – chemicals to be treated and reused. It  involves some amount of capital expenditures and running costs for technology and expertise 

along with high energy consumption, which may lead to significant emission of greenhouse gasses,” Basrie, who is also the president director of APR, said. 

“We have no choice but to face these changes, these challenges – collaboratively,” he added.