Weak Technical Teams and Aging Equipment: Simple Decolorizing Solutions Help Indonesia’s Small Dyeing Mills Survive Environmental Checks

Beyond large textile groups and organized industrial parks, Indonesia has a vast number of small and medium-sized printing and dyeing mills scattered across different regions. They provide flexible sampling and small-batch dyeing services for local brands and garment factories—but when it comes to wastewater treatment, many are stuck in a reactive mode.

Typical challenges include:

• Wastewater treatment plants were built years ago to meet minimum standards and often have low automation and limited online monitoring.

• Few mills employ full-time environmental or process engineers; dosing is usually based on operators’ experience—“look at the color, add some chemicals.”

• During surprise inspections or in the rainy season, when flows and loads fluctuate, effluent color easily slips out of the safe zone.

Under these constraints, sophisticated, high-maintenance processes are unrealistic. What small mills really need are simple, robust and easy-to-operate decolorizing solutions. Over the past one to two years, some Indonesian dyeing mills have started to adopt liquid decolorizing agents with around 50% solid content, partially replacing their previous “rough dosing” practices:

• High solid content reduces storage volume, which is crucial for small facilities with limited space.

• Being in liquid form, the printing and dyeing wastewater decolorizing agent can be dosed by metering pump. Operators no longer “pour chemicals by feeling”, but adjust dosage in a more controlled way based on incoming color and flow.

• The agent can be integrated into existing coagulation–sedimentation steps without major reconstruction of tanks or mechanical equipment.

Most importantly, a more targeted, high-concentration decolorizing agent helps small mills face inspections with less anxiety:

• When influent color changes, operators can see the impact of dosage adjustments on effluent color more clearly, making the process more predictable.

• By keeping simple daily records—approximate influent color and decolorizing agent dosage—plants gradually build their own operating curve, tailored to their specific wastewater.

• In discussions with customers or regulators, they can present a clearer logic behind dosing decisions instead of vague statements about “adding more chemicals”.

For Indonesia’s small and medium dyeing mills, a decolorizing agent is not a silver bullet. But in a context of limited technical resources and difficult structural upgrades, a targeted, easy-to-use printing and dyeing wastewater decolorizing agent with about 50% solid content offers a practical first step: solve the most visible color problem first, then move on to deeper optimization.