Following the tragic April 24 collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, where more than 1,000 garment workers perished, international clothing retailers and manufacturers have been hotly debating regulation to improve worker safety conditions worldwide.
Jeanologia, the Valencia, Spain-based producer of eco-friendly denim finishing equipment and technology, has taken a different approach: it’s decided to open a new demonstration center in Dhaka, Bangladesh, making its laser and ozone technologies accessible to local businesses and workers.
Enrique Silla, founder and president of Jeanologia, said the idea originated more than a year ago, but plans accelerated recently. “Bangladesh is an important market for us and for everyone in the entire industry,” he said. “After the accident, we had a lot of our customers, and [many] brands and retailers, really worried about the situation, and we thought it would be a good idea to open a small training area” to teach locals how to use safer, more environmentally sound denim finishing techniques.
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Currently under construction, the center will open in September.
The company works with about 20 manufacturers in Bangladesh who produce for retailers and brands such as H&M, Levi Strauss & Co., Gap, Zara, Marks & Spencer and Uniqlo. Silla said that the firm already has activated more than 30 of its laser and 15 of its ozone machines with producers in the country.
The hands-on seminars will train about one company per week, although Silla said Jeanologia will adapt its scheduling as needed. The courses will be free of charge, although participants will be asked to bring some of their own denim samples as well as some raw, untreated denim fabric. “We will demonstrate how to use laser instead of hand-sanding or sandblasting, and how to use ozone for fading jeans instead of using tons of water and chemicals — how to engineer the process in a different way to save water, energy and time,” he said. “They come in with what they produce every day, and we show them how to reproduce the same in a more efficient and responsible way.”
Jeanologia will also share a software program that allows firms to measure their social and environmental impact, and therefore to identify areas in need of improvement.
Noting there are more than 40,000 garment companies in Bangladesh, Silla said the demo center represented “a small action for such a large country,” but he hopes other garment firms will follow suit. Worker safety is “a matter of good and bad companies, not countries,” he said.