If your T-shirt reads 'Made in India,' you might have contributed to a water pollution crisis that has destroyed almost 30,000 family-owned farms
Approach the massive Orathupalayam Dam by road, and it quickly becomes clear that something has gone terribly wrong. Within 2 miles of the dam, the lush rice paddies, coconut palms and banana trees that have characterized this part of southern India suddenly give way to a parched, bright red landscape, dotted only with scrub forest. The Noyyal River, which used to be clean and clear, now runs foamy and green, polluted with the toxic runoff of the titanic textile industry 20 miles to the west, in Tirupur.
At first glance, Tirupur, aka “Knit City,” appears to be an exemplar of how globalization can improve the developing world. The garment industry here in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu earns billions of dollars annually, employs about a half-million people and exports clothes to Europe and the United States. Chances are good that if you have a Gap, Tommy Hilfiger or Wal-Mart T-shirt marked “Made in India,” it came from here.
Tirupur, India, is home to many of the factories that dye clothing sold in the rest of the world. The chemicals used to bleach, right, and dye fabrics have destroyed local water sources.
_Tocix fashion- the environmental crisis your closet
Comically Corrupt
on April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-floor complex of clothing factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh, caved in, burying over 1,100 workers in the rubble. Poor working conditions in the South Asian garment industry have led to far too many disasters, such as this factory building collapse near Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2013. Pushed by poverty and pulled by the hope of a better life, the residents of the village of Tekani, Bangladesh have for almost a decade been making the trip south to the capital to demand better safety conditions and unpolluted waters. Some in India fear similar working conditions are in store for them as well if factories and industrialists are left to run amok.
The rivers around Tirupur are often red or purple with runoff from nearby factories, such as those in the Netaji Apparel Park, that are the city’s economic engine.
Bottled Water Unfit to Drink
In the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster, India’s clothing industry has presented itself as the sustainable, safer alternative to Bangladesh. On September 19, 2013, the Tirupur Exporters Association and the Indian Consulate in New York City co-hosted an event in Manhattan’s Garment District, a few blocks from the 34th Street fast-fashion strip. The event was designed to attract orders from American clothing brands, and the message was simple: Fiascos like Rana Plaza won’t happen in India.
"The Indian apparel industry is compliance-oriented, and we follow all the rules of the game,” Arumugam Sakthivel, president of the association, told the Press Trust of India at the time.A year later, Tirupur was the biggest foreign currency earning town of India.
Rotten Coconuts
Tirupur in January 2015, the Orathupalayam Dam was still filled with green, foamy water. The few locals who have remained in the area struggle to survive.
Meanwhile, illegal dyeing units continue to surface regularly. “Some of the new dyeing factories are coming up in other river basins and even in the coastal areas,” says Prithviraj. He mentions Cuddalore, an ancient seaport town about 200 miles east, where chemical pollution in some areas has already raised the risk that residents will contract cancer in their lifetimes at least 2,000 times that of the average person.
Even if all the polluting ceased immediately, the damage is already done; it might be impossible to clean and regenerate the Noyyal River and the soil along its basin, says Prithviraj. “We’d have to turn back the clock 20 years.”
Additional reporting by Aletta Andre and Anil Varghese.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Eastman Exports was operating in contempt of India's Supreme Court 2007 demand that it reach zero effluent discharge. After publication, Eastman provided Newsweek with a 2007 Madras High Court consent order showing that the company's subsidiary, India Dying Mills in Erode, was a zero discharge unit in 2007.