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Abstract

Emissions of air pollutants cause adverse impacts on human health and the environment. As typical air pollutants, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide cause acid rain and particulate matter (PM). Significant emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in the production phases make the textile industry face tremendous challenges. Determining the chemical footprint is an effective method for transforming the potential environmental risks of pollutant emissions into an intuitive form of toxicity. In this study, we adopted the chemical footprint method to assess the toxicity impact of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from China’s textile industry. The results indicate that the chemical footprint of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in China’s textile industry showed a significant decreasing trend from 2001 to 2019, and the chemical footprint of nitrogen oxide was about 11 times higher than that of sulfur dioxide. Among the three sub-sectors of China’s textile industry, the textile manufacturing sector had the highest chemical footprint, accounting for 57.1–65.7% of the total chemical footprint. The remaining chemical footprint is allocated to the chemical fibers manufacturing sector, and the textile wearing apparel, footwear, and cap manufacturing sector. The chemical footprint intensity of China’s textile industry also showed a decreasing trend from 2006 to 2015, and the chemical footprint intensity of the three sub-sectors was in the order of the chemical fibers manufacturing sector, the textile manufacturing sector, and the textile wearing apparel, footwear, and cap manufacturing sector.

Keywords

Air Pollutants Chemical Footprint Nitrogen Oxide Sulfur Dioxide Toxicity Impact

Introduction

Emissions of pollutants into the air will not only result in undesirable changes to the ecological environment, but will also be responsible for “shortening life on average by 20 months around the globe.”¹ According to the data of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, nitrogen oxide (NO_X) and sulfur dioxide (SO₂) are of concern because they are precursors to ozone formation and secondary pollutant in PM causing adverse impacts on the ecological environment.² NO_X is a mixture of nitrogenous gases, mainly composed of NO₂ and NO. In the initial stage of emission, NO_X is primarily emitted as NO from anthropogenic combustion sources, including transportation, power plants, industrial production lines, and residential combustion.^3,4 During diffusion, NO_X undergoes a photochemical transformation with other air pollutants in the atmospheric background to form important secondary pollutants, PM, and ozone. Then, the concentration of NO₂ in NO_X gradually increases and becomes the main component. NO₂ exposure has been shown to exacerbate natural allergic reactions by producing reversible adverse effects on human lung function and the respiratory tract.⁵ Studies have shown that NO₂ exposure also exacerbates the effects of other pollutants (e.g. ozone, PM₁₀) exposure.⁶ NO_X could interact with water to form nitrates and nitrites. Nitrites can enter the human body to form amines nitrite, a potent carcinogen, and it can also bind to hemoglobin in human blood to form ortho-hemoglobin, which can cause loss of oxygen-carrying function of hemoglobin and lead to hypoxia.⁷ The increasing SO₂ emission will lead to an increase in the mortality risk of 1.01% through the respiratory system.⁸ Acid rain caused by sulfate acid deposition can be detrimental to ecosystems, plants and animals, both aquatic and terrestrial.^9,10

Industrial sectors are regarded as one of the largest sources of air pollutants, and the environmental problems caused by air pollutants discharged from industrial production have attracted increasing attention in recent years.¹¹ The Textile industry is one of the world’s largest industries. Every year, the global textile industry delivers close to 100 million metric tons of new products to the market.¹² The large number of products also hints at the seriousness of the environmental burden in the textile industry. It is often condemned for its negative impact on the environment due to the extensive use of toxic chemicals and the significant emissions of toxic air pollutants (e.g. NO_X, SO₂). The environmental pollution caused by the textile industry occurs from the acquisition of raw materials to the finishing of end-use products (e.g. apparel, scarfs, home textiles) and the recycling of waste textiles.¹³ Each processing step is directly or indirectly involved in environmental pollution by contaminating water, air, and land. The production process of textiles consumes a large amount of energies (e.g. coal, fuel oil, thermal power), generating quantities of NO_X and SO₂ emissions.¹⁴ In addition, specific dyes and auxiliaries in the fabric printing and dyeing process also emit NO_X and SO₂ under heating conditions.^13–15 When these exhaust fumes are released to the environment, they can seriously affect the biodiversity of nature.^16,17 Hence, quantifying and assessing the toxicity impacts caused by NO_X and SO₂ emissions in the textile industry can provide an important reference for the control of NO_X and SO₂, which has become a pressing concern.

After the literature review, it was found that previous studies on the environmental impact assessment of NO_X and SO₂ mainly use emissions and air quality as assessment indicators, without adequately considering the toxic effects of NO_X and SO₂ and their transport and transformation in the environment.^18–22 The chemical footprint (ChF) is a practical quantitative and toxicity analysis method for specifying chemical consumption and emissions of chemical pollutants (including gaseous, liquid, and solid pollutants), as well as for toxicity assessment of potential risks to human life and the environment.²³ Roos et al.²⁴ first introduced ChF methodology into the textile industry. Subsequent studies on water pollutants and impacts on aquatic ecosystems in the textile industry have been gradually conducted.^25–27 Qian et al.²⁸ first applied ChF to the environmental impact assessment of gaseous pollutants in the textile industry to quantify and assess the ChF of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in polyester fabric production. Guo et al.²⁹ proposed a new method to solve the missing characteristic factors (CFs), and constructed a ChF model that can effectively assess the environmental impact of NO_X and SO₂ emissions in the textile industry.

Industrial activities can create economic value for society, but also have significant environmental impacts (e.g. toxicity, eutrophication, greenhouse effect).¹³ Among them, the ChF of unit total industrial output value (ChFI, ChF intensity) can be used to comprehensively measure and reference both the economic benefits and the environmental impacts brought by industrial activities. China is the largest producer of textile products in the world. The development of the textile industry has made a lot of contributions to China’s economic development, but has also caused serious environmental impact. Its emissions of NO_X and SO₂ from the textile industry reached 80,276 tons in 2019.¹⁴ Nevertheless, no research has yet been done to quantify and assess the ChF of NO_X and SO₂ in China’s textile industry. To fill the gap, this article utilized the ChF methodology to assess the toxicity impact of NO_X and SO₂ emitted from China’s textile industry during 2001–2019 and analyzed ChFI of China’s textile industry in conjunction with the economic output of China’s textile industry.

Methods and Data

Methods

The USEtox model has been widely used as a characterization model, which aims to estimate CFs for human and ecology toxicity, based on a unit emission of a pollutant to a specific environmental compartment. USEtox is designed to provide the relative recommendations rather than to predict local impacts.³⁰ Nevertheless, it has been used regularly to estimate absolute toxicity impacts.^31,32 Six major urban and continental environmental compartments are nested within the USEtox, a box model that includes urban air, rural air, agricultural soil, industrial soil, fresh water, and coastal marine water. The pollutant transport (i.e. transport to other compartments, such as by volatilization or precipitation) and transformation (i.e. transformed by a physical, chemical, or biological degradation process within a specified compartment, such as hydrolysis or oxidation) among the boxes are represented as first-order losses process in the following general format:³⁰

\begin{matrix} \frac{d \to_{m_{x}} (t)}{dt} = EMI S_{x} + IM T_{y \to x} \times m_{y} - IM T_{x \to y} \times m_{x} \\ - DE G_{x} \times m_{x} - OU T_{x} \times m_{x} \end{matrix}

(1)

where m_x is the mass of the chemical in box x (kg), t is the time (days), EMIS_x is the emission rate of the chemical from box y to box x (kg/d), representing the amount of chemical discharged from box y to box x every day, IMT_y→x is the intermediate transfer rate of the chemical from box y into box x (days⁻¹), representing the speed of chemicals transferring from box y to box x, DEG_x is the degradation rate of chemical in box x (days⁻¹), and OUT_x is the transfer rate of chemical from box x to outside the system (days⁻¹).

To quantify the characterization factors (CFs, PAF m³ day/kg_emitted) of a chemical pollutant emitted into the environment implies a cause–effect chain that links emissions to impacts through three successive steps: environmental fate factor (FF, day), which indicates how a pollutant diffuses in the environment; exposure factor (XF), which determines how much environmental media comes into contact with human or ecological systems; and effect factor (EF, PAF m³/kg_emitted), which calculates the effect on humans or ecosystems per kilogram of pollutant emitted.³³ The resulting CF that is required for the quantification of toxicity for either human health or ecological impacts is generally defined as the product of these three factors:

CF = EF \times XF \times FF

(2)

EF = \frac{0.5}{H C_{50}}

(3)

XF = \frac{1}{1 + \frac{(K_{susp, x} \times C_{susp, fw} + K_{doc, x} \times C_{doc, fw} + BA F_{fish, fw, x} \times C_{biota, fw})}{10^{3}}}

(4)

where HC₅₀ is the geometric mean of chronic EC₅₀ for freshwater species (kg m⁻³), K_susp,x is the suspended solids/water partitioning coefficient of chemical x (L/kg), C_susp,fw is the concentration suspended matter in freshwater, 15 kg/m³ is selected as the reference according to the research of ECHA European Chemicals Agency,³⁴K_{doc, x} is the dissolved (colloidal) organic carbon/water partition coefficient of chemical x (L/kg), C_doc,fw is the concentration of dissolved (colloidal) organic carbon in freshwater, 5 kg/m³ is selected as the reference according to the research of Gandhi et al.,³⁵BAF_fish,fw,x is the bioaccumulation factor for freshwater fish of chemical x (L/kg), and C_biota,fw is the concentration of biota in freshwater, with 1 kg/m³ is selected as the reference according to the research of Brandes et al.³⁶

Input data of substances, compartments, and exposure scenarios are essential for the assessment of chemical pollutants’ human and/or ecosystem toxicity impacts with USEtox methodology. Compartment data of chemical pollutants at different spatial scales and exposure scenarios are predefined in USEtox. Specific input data of substances, such as chemical identities and toxicity involved, are required from the user.³⁰ Since these parameters of chemical properties and toxicity are closely related to the calculation of EF, XF, and FF.³⁷ These parameters are molecular weight (MW), the octanol–water partition coefficient (K_ow), the organic carbon–water partition coefficient (K_oc), Henry’s law coefficient at 25°C (K_H), vapor pressure at 25°C (P_vap), solubility at 25°C (Sol), degradation rate in air (K_degA), degradation rate in water (K_degW), bioaccumulation factor of the chemical (BAF), and water ecotoxicity (as HC₅₀). In this study, whenever possible, the experimental values of physicochemical properties (MW, K_ow, K_oc, K_H, P_vap, and Sol) and BAF have been taken. Estimated values were used when obtaining the experimental values of physicochemical properties, and determination of BAF was not possible according to the recommendation proposed by Fantke et al.³⁰ A literature survey of toxicity tests performed on freshwater organisms representative of multiple trophic levels was conducted, including algae, crustaceans, and fish in order to collect relevant EC₅₀ values. Then, the toxic effect of NO_X and SO₂ was computed on the basis of the HC₅₀ value.

The ChF of NO_X and SO₂ emitted into the air can be calculated as follows:

\begin{matrix} ChF = C F_{NO, air} \times (α \times E_{N O_{X}, air}) + C F_{N O_{2}, air} \\ \times (β \times E_{N O_{X}, air}) + C F_{S O_{2}, air} \times E_{S O_{2}, air} \end{matrix}

(5)

Ch F_{total} = \sum_{m = 1991}^{2019} Ch F_{m}

(6)

where ChF is the chemical footprint (PAF m³ day), CF_{NO, air} is the characteristic factor of the emission of NO into air compartment, and its value is 0.1868 PAF m³ day/kg according to the calculation, $C F_{N O_{2}, air}$ is the characteristic factor of the emission of NO₂ into air compartment, and its value is 0.0014 PAF m³ day/kg according to the calculation, $C F_{S O_{2}, air}$ is the characteristic factor of the emission of SO₂ into air compartment, and its value is 0.0077 PAF m³ day/kg according to the calculation, E_{NO, air} is the emission of NO into air compartment, $E_{N O_{2}, air}$ is the emission of NO₂ into the air compartment, $E_{S O_{2}, air}$ is the emission of SO₂ into the air compartment, $α$ is the share of NO in NO_X emissions, and $β$ is the share of NO₂ in NO_X emissions, ChF_total is the total chemical footprint from 2001 to 2019, m is the year, and ChF_m is the total chemical footprint in m years. It is worth noting that this study uses the composition ratio data of NO_X directly discharged from production line, i.e. NO accounts for 95% and NO₂ accounts for 5%.^14,38

In this article, we propose the ChF intensity (i.e. the ChF per unit total industrial output value) to give a full understanding of the relationship between ChF and the economic output in the China’s textile industry. It can be calculated as:

ChFI = \frac{ChF}{TIOV}

(7)

where ChFI (in (PAF m³ day)/10,000 US dollars) is the ChF intensity. TIOV (in billion US dollars/year) is the industrial output value of the textile industry.

Data

In this article, tabulated data of NO_X and SO₂ generation and emissions were collected from the China Statistical Yearbook on Environment series (2001–2019).³⁹ The TIOV of China’s textile industry was collected from the Annual Statistic Report on Environment in China.⁴⁰ It was converted according to the annual average exchange rates between RMB yuan and US dollar. The data are listed in Tables 1 –3.

Table 1.

NO_X and SO₂ generation and emissions data in the textile manufacturing sector (2001–2019).

Sub-sector	Textile manufacturing sector (TMS)
Year	SO₂ emissions/t	SO₂ generation/t	NO_X emissions/t	NO_X generation/t	TIOV/billion US dollars
2001	262,581.0	322,592.0
2002	230,420.0	292,487.0
2003	246,467.0	323,803.0
2004	293,665.0	369,000.0			3923.1
2005	296,208.0	382,754.0			4784.5
2006	302,728.0	395,801.0	152,386.0	164,042.0	5846.0
2007	275,866.0	358,440.0	136,197.0	141,858.0	6179.0
2008	263,827.0	364,174.0	134,823.0	140,515.0	9310.2
2009	256,112.9	360,620.3	131,105.8	134,169.9	10,262.3
2010	247,218.3	346,864.6	129,287.5	132,406.1	10,752.0
2011	272,288.0	316,000.0	76,702.0	78,000.0	12,683.1
2012	269,806.0	318,000.0	76,835.0	88,000.0	11,949.2
2013	254,902.0	308,000.0	72,576.0	73,000.0	12,239.6
2014	234,670.0	289,000.0	69,718.0	72,000.0	11,659.1
2015	227,339.0	295,000.0	68,927.0	75,000.0	12,146.6
2016	80,923.0		52,249.0
2017	45,882.0		38,723.0
2018	30,608.0		30,763.0
2019	18,069.0		26,315.0

SO₂: sulfur dioxide; NO_X: nitrogen oxide.

Table 2.

NO_X and SO₂ generation and emissions data in the textile wearing apparel, footwear, and cap manufacturing sector (2001–2019).

Sub-sector	Textile wearing apparel, footwear, and cap manufacturing sector (TWAFCMS)
Year	SO₂ emissions/t	SO₂ generation/t	NO_X emissions/t	NO_X generation/t	TIOV/billion US dollars
2001	10,518.0	12,330.0
2002	9386.0	11,689.0
2003	9496.0	12,864.0
2004	12,956.0	15,342.0			436.3
2005	15,314.0	21,089.0			483.2
2006	21,256.0	29,023.0	10,768.0	11,173.0	842.8
2007	12,360.0	19,711.0	6974.0	7996.0	801.2
2008	11,948.0	18,270.0	7727.0	7865.0	813.5
2009	12,416.7	19,348.0	6959.6	7141.0	940.5
2010	11,193.2	14,039.6	6770.9	6892.3	815.4
2011	19,266.0	22,000.0	6326.0	6000.0	1066.4
2012	16,685.0	19,000.0	4787.0	5000.0	1147.4
2013	16,628.0	18,000.0	4696.0	5000.0	1189.9
2014	18,287.0	21,000.0	5505.0	6000.0	1303.3
2015	19,842.0	22,000.0	5780.0	6000.0	1262.8
2016	11,655.0		5652.0
2017	2835.0		2214.0
2018	1067.0		1492.0
2019	839.0		1511.0

SO₂: sulfur dioxide; NO_X: nitrogen oxide.

Table 3.

NO_X and SO₂ generation and emissions data in the chemical fiber manufacturing sector (2001–2019).

Sub-sector	Chemical fibers manufacturing sector (CFMS)
Year	SO₂ emissions/t	SO₂ generation/t	NO_X emissions/t	NO_X generation/t	TIOV/billion US dollars
2001	127,604.0	169,042.0
2002	113,473.0	141,846.0
2003	127,620.0	156,689.0
2004	115,828.0	153,859.0			1253.1
2005	115,248.0	173,670.0			1506.2
2006	131,915.0	190,242.0	91,162.0	11,4704.0	1762.2
2007	121,795.0	184,392.0	84,386.0	93,055.0	2603.9
2008	117,031.0	168,910.0	69,236.0	71,844.0	2613.3
2009	114,553.2	200,403.0	73,712.4	74,911.1	2442.9
2010	106,883.5	279,518.2	77,972.8	79,756.7	3280.7
2011	121,463.0	173,000.0	53,098.0	54,000.0	3916.9
2012	101,466.0	154,000.0	48,920.0	49,000.0	3590.0
2013	85,924.0	154,000.0	49,935.0	51,000.0	3621.2
2014	77,049.0	162,000.0	50,290.0	54,000.0	3879.4
2015	76,010.0	168,000.0	40,058.0	58,000.0	4432.4
2016	27,754.0		22,948.0
2017	19,926.0		19,892.0
2018	12,625.0		14,704.0
2019	12,577.0		14,423.0

SO₂: sulfur dioxide; NO_X: nitrogen oxide.

Results and Discussion

The ecotoxicity CFs of NO_X and SO₂ were calculated first. Then, the ChF of NO_X and SO₂ generated (ChF_generated, generated and discharged directly from the production line) and the ChF of NO_X and SO₂ emitted (ChF_emitted, discharged to the atmosphere after treatment) from China’s textile industry between 2001 and 2019 were quantified, as shown in Figure 1. Data for NO_X before 2006 and NO_X and SO₂ after 2015 were not tabulated, so the ChF_generated and ChF_emitted results for this time period were not calculated.

Figure 1.

Chemical footprint of NO_X and SO₂ generation and emissions in China’s textile industry (2001–2019).

As shown in Figure 1, the ChF_generated and ChF_emitted of SO₂ decreased slightly before 2015, and after 2015, the ChF_emitted of SO₂ fell dramatically. The ratio of ChF_emitted to ChF_generated showed a downward trend from year to year. The total toxicity impact due to the emission of SO₂ from 2001 to 2019 was 46,849,758.4 PAF m³ day. In comparison to SO₂, the ChF_generated and ChF_emitted of NO_X were much larger, and the total toxicity impact of NO_X emissions from 2006 to 2019 was 352,340,264.3 PAF m³ day. The ChF_emitted of NO_X presented an obvious downward trend. The ChF_emitted of NO_X from 2006 to 2010 exhibited an “L” shape, with overall decrease of 15.8%. In 2011, the ChF_emitted of NO_X jumped off a cliff compared with 2010, decreasing by about 37% in a single year. In contrast to the approximately 15.7% decline in ChF_emitted for NO_X between 2011 and 2015, the rate of decline in ChF_emitted for NO_X had accelerated significantly since 2015, with a 63.2% decline as of 2019. Between 2006 and 2015, the ChF_emitted accounted for an average of 94% of the ChF_generated.

The ChF_emitted of NO_X and SO₂ emitted from the three sub-sectors of China’s textile industry (textile manufacturing sector (TMS), textile wearing apparel, footwear, and cap manufacturing sector (TWAFCMS), chemical fiber manufacturing sector (CFMS)) was evaluated from 2006 to 2019. The results are shown in Figure 2. The inner ring represents the percentage of ChF_emitted in the three sub-sectors, and the outer ring represents the percentage of NO_X and SO₂ in each sub-sector. As the results of each year are inconsistent, interval results are shown in the figure, representing the ChF_emitted proportion range of each sub-sector from 2006 to 2019. It can be seen that the ChF_emitted of the TMS was the largest with a total ChF_emitted of 233,909,835.5 PAF m³ day during the selected 14 years. The annual ChF_emitted caused by NO_X and SO₂ emissions from the TMS accounted for 57.1–65.7% of the total ChF_emitted of China’s textile industry. The ChF_emitted of NO_X in China’s textile industry was 352,340,264.3 PAF m³ day, approximately 11 times larger than that of SO₂. The distribution of ChF_emitted of NO_X and SO₂ in the three sub-sectors was similar to that of China’s textile industry.

Figure 2.

Chemical footprint of NO_X and SO₂ emissions in China’s textile industry (2006–2019).

The ChFI of the three sub-sectors of China’s textile industry and the average ChFI of China’s textile industry was calculated according to equation (6). The results are shown in Figure 3. In the same downward trend as ChF_emitted, ChFI also declined overall during the studied years. Over the period from 2006 to 2015, the average ChFI of China’s textile industry declined by 82.6%. The ChFI of TMS, TWAFCMS, and CFMS decreased by 82.1%, 70.4%, and 86.1%, respectively. With 2011 as a watershed year, the average ChFI as well as the ChFI of the three sub-sectors fell sharply before that, and all fell slowly thereafter. Among the three sub-sectors of China’s textile industry, CFMS had the largest ChFI, followed by TMS and TWAFCMS. It is worth mentioning that only the ChFI of CFMS was greater than the average ChFI.

Figure 3.

ChFI of China’s textile industry (2006–2015).

In general, the overall decreasing trend of toxicity impacts caused by NO_X and SO₂ emissions from China’s textile industry between 2001 and 2019 was mainly attributed to the reasonable and effective control of NO_X and SO₂ for the above interannual variation results. In 2001, China published the “10th Five-Year Plan for National Environment Protection,” which focused on the rectification of coal-fired power plants. However, since China became a member of World Trade Organization (WTO) in the same year, the export of textiles and garments grew rapidly year by year, resulting in an increase in the output of the China’s textile industry.⁴¹ As a result, ChF_generated and ChF_emitted of SO₂ in China’s textile industry increased by 14.6% and 6.5%, respectively, during the period from 2001 to 2005.

Since the problem of acid rain was not well solved during the 10th Five-Year Plan, the “11th Five-Year Plan for National Environment Protection” issued in 2006 continued to be used to control the emission of SO₂.⁴² The total SO₂ emissions were required to be included in the national binding target system, to accelerate the construction of desulfurization facilities in existing coal-fired power plants, and to promote the comprehensive treatment of SO₂ in various industries.⁴³ During the 11th Five-Year Plan period, the emissions of NO_X and SO₂ in China’s textile industry decreased by 15.8% and 19.9%, respectively. This indicates that the reduction and control of pollutants in China’s textile industry had achieved remarkable results. After entering the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, China had incorporated the dual indicators of SO₂ and NO_X emissions into the national binding indicator system.⁴⁴ In 2013, the most stringent “Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan” in China focused on the textile industry, requiring the textile industry to step up comprehensive treatment, reduce pollutant emissions, adjust and optimize industrial structure, and promote industrial transformation and upgrading.⁴⁵ Previously, China’s textile industry developed rapidly, and its position in the global value chain steadily improved, which caused the TIOV to increase year by year.⁴⁶ The decrease of ChF_emitted and the increase of TIOV make the ChFI of China’s textile industry decrease year by year. After 2015, with the promulgation of “13th Five-Year Plan for National Environment Protection” and the “Three-Year Action Plan to Fight Air Pollution,” more stringent requirements were set for NO_X and SO₂ emissions, which resulted in a significant reduction in NO_X and SO₂ emissions from China’s textile industry in the following 4 years. From the 11th Five-Year Plan to the 13th Five-Year Plan, China had continued to control the total emissions of pollutants, and had achieved remarkable success in controlling NO_X and SO₂ emissions.

The different toxicity impacts caused by the three sub-sectors in China’s textile industry were mainly due to the different products produced in the three sub-sectors. TMS involves a wide range of textiles and complex production processes, and the printing, dyeing, and finishing of textile products are mainly concentrated in this sector. Therefore, the ChF_emitted of TMS accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total ChF_emitted of China’s textile industry. However, TMS had 70.9% of the TIOV of China’s textile industry, so even though TMS caused the largest toxicity impact, its ChFI was lower than the average ChFI. The ChF_emitted of CFMS was second only to TMS in China’s textile industry. This is due to the fact that CFMS involves the preparation of the spinning stock and the post-treatment process, consuming many solvents and additives with complex composition during the manufacturing process, thus emitting large amounts of NO_X and SO₂. At the same time, CFMS had the largest ChFI, which is higher than the average ChFI. This is due to the large emissions per unit industrial output value of CFMS, indicating that CFMS is a relatively low production value and high pollution sub-sector. TWAFCMS had the smallest ChF_emitted, as garments, shoes, and hats are intensively sewed in this sub-sector and consume few chemicals. The less use of chemicals allows its NO_X and SO₂ emissions to cause only 3.1–7.2% of the total annual emissions of China’s textile industry. The low emission of NO_X and SO₂ of TWAFCMS leads to the small ChF_emitted of TWAFCMS, which leads to the small ChF_emitted under the unit industrial output value of TWAFCMS, so TWAFCMS has the smallest ChFI. The difference between NO_X caused ChF_emitted and SO₂ caused ChF_emitted not only due to the different emission amounts of NO_X and SO₂, but also due to the different CFs of NO, NO₂, and SO₂. The CFs of NO and NO₂ are much larger than those of SO₂, because NO and NO₂ cause greater toxicity and greater exposure to air. This, coupled with the fact that the NO_X emissions are also much larger than SO₂ emissions, creates a large gap in the calculation of ChF_emitted.

Conclusion

NO_X and SO₂ emitted from the textile industry could cause substantial effects on ecological environment and human health. The toxicity impacts of NO_X (2006–2019) and SO₂ (2001–2019) emitted from China’s textile industry was 352,340,264.3 and 46,849,758.4 PAF m³ day, respectively, with the largest toxicity impact caused by TMS. The toxicity impacts and secondary pollution problems caused by NO_X and SO₂ emissions had prompted the Chinese government authorities to pay more attention to these pollutants. Therefore, the Chinese government authorities had actively taken many control and treatment measures (e.g. adjusting the energy structure, optimizing the industrial layout, and constructing desulfurization equipment) to reduce the emissions of NO_X and SO₂ at source, thus reducing their toxic effects, as evidenced by the reduction of ChFI. However, this study indicated that the toxicity impact assessment studies on NO_X and SO₂ are still in their infancy. In addition, extensive studies must be conducted to fully consider the proportion of NO and NO₂ components in NO_X. However, both NO_X and SO₂ could cause the formation of secondary pollutants PM and ozone, which lead to urban haze weather. Therefore, subsequent studies can be conducted on the ChF of PM and consider its multiple environmental impact assessment with NO_X and SO₂ to mitigate the combined environmental impacts caused by the exhaust emissions from the textile industry in China.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors are grateful to the Soft Science Research Project of Zhejiang Province (2022C25030), the Excellent Graduate Thesis Cultivation Foundation (LW-YP2021055), the Science and Technology Innovation Activities of University Students in Zhejiang Province (2022R406C077), the Scientific Project of Zhejiang Provincial Administration for Market Regulation (No. ZC2021A002) and the Science Foundation of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University (ZSTU) under grant number 22202009-Y for providing funding support to this research.

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Toxicity Impact Assessment of Nitrogen Oxide and Sulfur Dioxide Emissions in China’s Textile Industry With Chemical Footprint Method

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Methods and Data

Methods

Data

Results and Discussion

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

References