Behind fashion: Survey of two garment towns in China

Xintang Town and Gurao Town are two towns that specialize in garments and are renowned for their mass production of jeans and underwear in Southern China's Guangdong Province. Xintang Town manufactures more than 60 percent of denim garments in China and Gurao Town outputs 200 million brassieres annually.

On the other hand, they are microcosms of the pollution problems of China's textile industry or even whole industries.


Xintang Town is located in north shore of the East River, the main tributary of the Pearl River Delta in southern Guangdong Province. Like many other fast-growing industrial towns, various facades of garment factories are seen in great numbers along the bustling streets of Xintang Town.(Photo by chinapic.people.com.cn)


According to data from the local government, in 2008 the annual output of denim garments was more than 260 million pieces that were exported to dozens of countries and regions, including the United States, Russia and E.U. countries, accounting for more than 60 percent of gross production and 40 percent of total exports nationwide, respectively.(Photo by chinapic.people.com.cn)

Manual processing workers from the jeans factories are commonly seen everywhere ?not only in retail stores but also in residential houses. From dawn to dark, workers are busy throwing piles of denim clothing from upper floors onto the ground to be loaded into a truck and shipped. (Photo by chinapic.people.com.cn)


Many local women, the elderly and even children, are able to do some thread cutting work to earn money to subsidize family incomes. The picture shows children work with parents in a denim garment factory after school. Every day, they cut threads for 200 pair of jeans earning 0.15 yuan (about 0.02 U.S. dollar) each.
(Photo by chinapic.people.com.cn)
The smelly, sewage-filled river belies the glamour of the underwear industry.(Photo by chinapic.people.com.cn)


The stream was turned red by dyeing wastewater and was filled with garbage. A villager said: "The sewage is discharged from upstream dyeing factories. Sometimes it was quite smelly and you can find different colors in the river." (Photo by chinapic.people.com.cn)                                                                                                                     source:chinapic.people