1. Textile production is one of Syria’s major industries and is known to be a highly
water intensive industry. The Syrian Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs
(MSEA) has identified pollution prevention and control of waste discharges from
major industries – including the textile industry - as one of its environmental pri-
orities. Previously, monitoring information on pollutant loads from a quantity and
quality point of view, and their impact on the environment, were lacking for most
of the industrial sector in Syria. This project successfully introduced the first
detailed large-scale environmental audit for the Syrian textile industry.
The audit covered a sample of ten textile mills and assessed the pollution pro-
duced by these mills, with an emphasis on wastewater discharge on receiving
water resources. The project developed pollution prevention and control pro-
grammes, tailored to each individual audited industry, including prevention and
treatment methods that will ultimately help control polluting industrial activities
and promote cleaner production technologies.
S Y R I A
L I F E T C Y 96/ S Y R /37
SET
T O TA L ELIGIBLE COST
247,200.00 ECU
LIFE CONTRIBUTION
245,666.67 ECU
C O N TA C T
Syrian Environmental
Technologies (SET)
P.O. Box 4565 Damascus
Syria
Tel.: +963 11 221 41 55
Fax: +963 11 223 24 55
ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT AND
POLLUTION PREVENTION AND CONTROL
OF THE SYRIAN TEXTILE INDUSTRY
Water spills from an unattended jigger machine contribute to excessive water consumption and
unaesthetic conditions.

2. Technical description
Textile mills use a wide variety of chemicals
and dyes to transform fibres (mainly cotton and
wool) into fabrics. This project established that
mills processing mainly cotton fibres use approx-
imately 65 - 81 cubic meters of water per ton of
finished product, whereas for wool, 150 - 189
cubic meters of water are used per ton of finished
product. Wastewater generation for cotton is 41
- 73 cubic meters per ton of finished product, and
for wool about 140 cubic meters per ton of fin-
ished product.
The project was carried out in three phases:
• Phase one: a survey of available literature on
industrial processes in the textile sector, fol-
lowed by an overview of the Syrian textile
industry. Screening and selection of textile mills
for detailed environmental audit;
• Phase two: ten detailed environmental audits
were carried out, including an assessment of
conformity with the requirements of the EU’s
Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS).
Ten technical reports were produced, docu-
menting findings, the results of chemical analy-
ses and conclusions of the audits. Following
these reports, seminars to discuss recommen-
dations for remedies were carried out within
each of the ten mills.
• Phase three: information and data from the
audits were compiled in a final report which
was presented during a seminar to the stake-
holders, including the Minister of State for
Environmental Affairs, the Minister of Industry,
the Head of the General Organisation for the
Textile Industry, etc.
Conclusions and
environmental benefit
Two factors were given special attention and
proved to be of critical importance: (a) govern-
ment support and (b) acknowledgement by the
mills’ senior management of the importance and
benefits of environmental auditing, as better
environmental performance can give companies
a competitive edge.
The technical, institutional, regulatory and
socio-cultural measures recommended in the
auditors’ reports fulfilled the primary objective of
the study, which was to provide proposals for
pollution prevention and control in order to assist
the Syrian textile industry to comply with local
and international standards by gradually improv-
ing its environmental performance. It should be
underlined that the stakeholders expressed their
positive support for the implementation of a
number of these very practical measures.
In addition to these very concrete results,
detailed data from the environmental audits were
provided in the form of a database to the MSEA
for integration into the national environmental
information system. Furthermore, the results of
the study will be used by the staff of the MSEA
to develop guidelines for pollution prevention
and control programmes for the entire textile
industry.
Death of vegetation was apparent after a fuel
spill had occurred.
Project time in a textile mill. From left to right:
Rawaa Al Saadi, Bashar Al-Masri, Marwan Saba,
Tawfik Mourad, Mohamad Kayyal.