dc.description.abstract | According to the statistics over the past six years, the textile sludge grew by 41 percent due to the growth of Taiwan′s performance fabric market. In this study, SCP method was used for analyzing the Taiwanese textile sludge recycling industry. The research indicates that the entry barriers for the textile sludge recycling market are difficult processing technology, the purchase of expensive fixed assets, scarce lands for the industrial use, and the license acquired. Because of the technical problems and recycling companies what should be legally licensed, there are only 8 legally licensed companies in this industry. These entry barriers make this market a typical oligopoly market.
Although this recycling textile sludge is not the main business for these eight companies, the profits from the processing fees for the textile sludge are very high. Especially due to the recycling technical problems, the processing treatment for the sludge does not conform to regulations which causes the ban of business resulting in market supply instability. Therefore, the recycling companies collaborated with each other to increase the recycling price from $ 2,000 per ton to $ 8,000 per ton within few years. Because of the high recycling price, lots of textile sludge are illegally buried or dumped. The government should strengthen the inspection and increase the frequency of checking for the prevention, and the government also needs to increase the penalties to punish violations of illegal activities.
The better solution for the reduction of the textile sludge is that the government should provide some benefits to dyeing companies for increasing R&D activities or purchasing new equipment in order to decrease the sludge quantity. Currently, most of the sludge is reused by the recycling companies as a fuel. The recycling companies should seek newer technologies to reuse the textile sludge as renewable raw materials in various products in order to have cost down and product differentiation advantages, and less environment damages from the sludge. | en_US |