By Lincoln Bates Industrial effluent in Georgia's waterways is nothing new, nor are increasingly stringent regulations designed to keep pollutants in line. But new approaches to mitigate the problem at the source have shown promise, and a university-industry partnership in Georgia is leading the way. They suggested a closed-loop treatment system that completely reuses process water, with the goal of reducing wastewater volume to as near zero as possible. As many as 140 of the state's 159 counties house some sort of textile-related business, Cook says. In parts of rural Georgia those companies are the major employer, indeed have been since the late 19th century when northern textile manufacturers moved south to be closer to their cotton supply and to cheaper labor.
Projects are cooperative, and participating plants agree to be beta test sites.
Combined, these industries employ 260,000 Georgians, almost half of the state's manufacturing workforce. But despite their size, they face serious problems, including foreign competition and domestic regulatory issues. Each of the three has formed a public-private partnership where industry identifies critical competitiveness problems, then works closely with faculty from Georgia's colleges and universities to solve those problems, be they food safety, fiber yield or air pollution. Also, the entire industry can learn from the results of each individual project, she adds. In fact, one of the funding selection criteria is how pervasive the issue is.