Chemical Substitution in the Nepal Carpet Industry Burton Hamner Asian Jnstiacte ofA4anagement Manila, The Philippines

riental carpets are one of the most popular 0 products of Asia. Produced from the Middle'East to China, they have long been known for their complex designs and rich colors. Traditionally, the dyes used to color the wool and other materials from which carpets are made were obtained from a variety of plants and other natural sources.

Most of the natural dyes were collected in the wild from sources such as oak tree galls, larkspur, woad, indigo, madder, and cochineal. Only a few of the sources, such as indigo, were intensively cultivated. As synthetic dyes were developed, reliance on natural dye sources diminished. Synthetic am dyes (an acid direct dye that yields yellow or orange-red) were in- troduced to many weaving ar- eas between 1875 and 1890. Synthetic indigo was developed in 1897, and by 1914, only 4% of the indigo produced was ex- tracted from plants. As the car- pet industry has grown and

refugees entered Nepal. The refugees brought with them their traditional carpet-weaving prac- tices. Searching for income, they began making carpets, and in 1964, the first commercial ship- ment of hand-knotted carpets was exported from Nepal. Today the carpet industry is the largest industry in Nepal. Between 1995 and 1996, Nepal exported 0.9 million square meters of car- pet, providing the country's largest source of for- eign income.

Hundreds of small producers make carpets in Nepal. Over 90% are located

The economic opportunity is significant, the market is responsive, and there are good indicators that the con- cept [of using Nepali-grown vegetable dyesJ is technkdy feasible. And success would man that industrid ecology is real enough to cvalk on.

commercial production has demanded more reli- able supplies, vegetable dyes have been largely replaced by synthetic dyes, including acid, reac- tive, chrome, and metal-complex formulations.

In the Kingdom of Nepal this has led to a major environmental problem with significant ecosystem implications and also to a major op- portunity for industrial ecology. When the Chi- nese army occupied Tibet in the 1950s, a flood of

8 Copyright 1999 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University

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in the relatively small Kathmandu Valley. Imported wool is dyed in vats and woven into carpets. The carpets are then washed repeatedly before being trimmed to finish. Most of the dyes used are synthetics imported from European pro- ducers such as Sandoz and Ciba-Giegy. The dyeing pro- cess is largely done with few process controls, and the trans- fer efficiency of dye onto the

wool is often quite poor. Consequently, large quantities of dyes are discharged into the shallow rivers of the Kathmandu Valley. Waste dyes are the largest chemical pollutant of Nepal rivers, and the once-clean rivers of the Kathmandu Val- ley are now black.

A Nepali organization, the Institute for Legal Research and Resources (ILRR), is working with the carpet industry to investigate the feasibility of commercial-scale application of vegetable dyes to substitute for imported synthetic dyes. With financial support from the U.S.-Asia Envi-

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ronmental Partnership, through the Asia Foun- dation, ILRR has hired two chemists to investi- gate the challenges to using vegetable dyes. These include color quality and fastness, but the most significant obstacle is obtaining sufficient supply. Many companies produce carpets accord- ing to orders from foreign buyers, and one com- pany owner says that it would take 6 months to get sufficient “traditional” vegetable dyes for a typical order.

Yet the advantages of overcoming these ob- stacles are striking. Imported dyes are the sec- ond-biggest expense to the Nepal carpet industry, after imported wool, and one for which scarce foreign exchange must be used. If veg- etable dyes could be grown in Nepal in sufficient quantity, it would significantly improve the bal- ance of payments of the country. It would also potentially reduce carpet production costs and make Nepali carpets more competitive in the global carpet market. This economic rationale is increasing the interest of the Nepal government in the ILRR project.

The environmental and health implications are also significant. The metals in imported syn- thetic dyes are carried downstream from Kathmandu through thousands of miles of In- dian rivers, potentially affecting millions of people. Dozens of carpet dyers are known to have suffered acute health problems from con- tact with the synthetic dyes and are probably the tip of the iceberg. It is estimated that the Nepal carpet industry employs between 100,000 and 300,000 people, many of whom come into con- tact with raw dyestuffs regularly and who can be expected to have chronic if not acute reactions to the chemicals.

Production of vegetable dyes could also ben- efit Nepal’s agricultural economy. One of the world’s poorest countries, Nepal greatly needs new kinds of cash crops. The impact of diverting the tens of millions of dollars currently paid to European dye producers to Nepal farmers would be significant.

The carpet market is quite responsive to the use of vegetable dyes. Major carpet dealers dis- tinguish vegetable-dyed from synthetic-dyed car- pets for their customers, although they usually argue that vegetable dyes are not necessarily of better durability (and in the case of acidic black

tannin dyes the durability is worse). Germany is the biggest importer of Nepalese carpets with 80% of the purchases, and German buyers are increasingly conscious of the use of synthetic dyes that have negative environmental effects. The carpet industry has a product labeling sys- tem called Rugmark that represents carpets made without the use of child labor, and the Rugmark Nepal Foundation is considering expanding the use of the label to cover environmentally respon- sible production as well. There is therefore a po- tential market-driven mechanism to promote vegetable dye use in the carpet industry.

Some dye producers are specializing in natu- ral dyes specifically to respond to market de- mand. One company based in Colorado, Allegro Natural Dyes, Inc., produces a full range of dye colors from five natural sources: indigo, Osage, madder, cutch, and cochineal.

Know-how for large-scale vegetable dyeing is increasing. According to several American car- pet dealers interviewed by the author, in the past 20 years there has been a huge increase in the quantity and variety of new vegetable-dyed rugs available. The trend began in western Turkey in the late 1960s, but knowledge of vegetable dye- ing has now been reintroduced into Afghani- stan, India, Pakistan, and Nepal..

Current know-how is augmented by an ex- tensive literature on natural dyes, dating back centuries. For example, the book Dyer’s Insmcc- tor, by pattern dyer David Smith, was published in 1860 with nearly 800 recipes for dyes. Now hobbyists and return-to-nature advocates are adding rapidly to the resources available. Over a dozen books on natural dyes have been pub- lished in the last few decades.

Despite these resources, Nepal faces signifi- cant challenges in substituting locally grown vegetable dyes for imported synthetics. Research is needed on the types of dye plants that would grow best in Nepal’s varied climatic conditions. If sufficient quantities can be produced, exten- sive quality control will need to be instituted to satisfy foreign buyers who want large lots of identical carpets. Although vegetable dyes are free of heavy metals, it is not clear that they pro- duce less biological or chemical oxygen demand in wastewaters or that they do not cause adverse health effects in some workers. And if vegetable

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dyes are used that require fixing with mordants containing heavy metals, switching from syn- thetic dyes to natural dyes may not be an envi- ronmental improvement at all. Integrating Nepal's carpet and agricultural industries would probably run into other challenges that are now unforeseen. Perhaps the greatest challenge will be getting the various organizations in Nepal that would be affected by the change to cooper- ate with each other. However, the economic op- portunity is significant, the market is responsive, and there are good indicators that the concept is

technically feasible. And success would mean that industrial ecology is real enough to walk on.

Address correspondence to: Burton Hamner Adjunct Professor, Asian Institute of Management, Manila Philippines c/o Hamner and Associates, LLC 4343 4th Avenue NW, Seattle, WA 98107 Seattle Washington bhamne4mindspr ing.com http://www.mindspring.com/- bhamner

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