Fashion for Good unveils roadmap for India’s textile waste
Leveraging insights from Sorting for Circularity India, a Levi’s and Arvind-backed project launched in 2021, Sustainability hub Fashion for Good has published a toolkit designed to help companies use textile waste in India.
In 2021, Fashion for Good launched the Sorting for Circularity India Project to organise the Indian textile waste market in a three-phase approach to streamline, strengthen and foster the Indian textile waste market to drive the transition to a more circular economy.
As well as Levi’s and Arvind, the project brought together industry players including PVH Corp, Target, Birla Cellulose and Welspun India, as well as Fashion for Good innovators Reverse Resources, PICVISA and Matoha. H&M, Primark, and TESCO also joined as external partners.
According to Fashion for Good’s Wealth in Waste report, every year, 1,720 KTons of 100% cotton post-consumer domestic (PCD) textile waste remains unused in India due to the lack of proper collection and sorting systems. With the upcoming legislation on textile waste management, the value of post-consumer waste is expected to rise, making it crucial for India to focus on PCD waste and develop the necessary infrastructure for collection, sorting and pre-processing.
Katrin Ley, managing director of Fashion for Good, said: “The Sorting for Circularity India toolkit is a milestone in our journey towards a waste-free world. We have mapped the textile waste landscape, unpacking the huge potential, as well as the roadblocks and commercial opportunities in India’s textile waste industry.
“We are excited to move beyond rhetoric with this powerful coalition of partners and translate our findings into a roadmap for concrete actions.”
Celebrating the closure of the Sorting for Circularity India Project, a conference in New Delhi on December 1 and 2, hosted in collaboration with Laudes Foundation, IDH, Canopy and Reverse Resources, will focus on developing a roadmap to circularity. The event marks the launch of “Re-START”, a textile recovery alliance aiming to position India as a solutions hub.
The project is supported through funding provided by Laudes Foundation and IDH, and knowledge support from Canopy and Circle Economy Foundation.
Image: Saahas Zero Waste Facilities in Bangalore, India. CREDIT: Fashion for Good.
