Weaving the fabric of transformation: 30 lessons from India's post-consumer textile waste

India is one of the largest producers, employers, and fashion consumers. But more surprisingly, India is also the second largest importer of post-consumer waste (yes, they import old clothing for recycling); this, combined with a growing consumer market creating textile waste, creates a "double burden" in the country.

Despite this, a formal collection or sorting infrastructure for end-of-life textiles has yet to be developed. Consequently, around 80% of textile waste ends up in landfills, polluting the earth and causing toxic gas emissions. On top of this, an estimated 1.5-4 million waste workers in India collect, repair, and resell repair used clothing. This large group of waste workers are often from underserved communities, primarily women, with an average income of $1,50-$3,00 per day. 

The problem is enormous, but so is the impact and business potential of turning textile waste into a valuable resource. For every 1,000 tons of textile waste handled, research suggests that twenty decent jobs can be created, with each ton of reused fibre creating an additional seven jobs. Solving India's textile waste problem has the potential to unlock an entirely new job market for waste workers!But when we started to research post-consumer waste in India to be able to address these issues, it felt like a black box. No one could tell us where the waste was, its volumes, or who collected it. To get a clear picture of where value chain interventions were required, we got busy with extensive research, conducting over 50+ interviews with waste pickers, recyclers, collectors, upcyclers, craftswomen, innovators, government parties and more. 

Sharing is caring, and more is more impact. 

It would not feel right to keep all this knowledge we accumulated to ourselves. If we could do it alone, we would not be dreaming big enough. We want to share it so that others who want to do something about post-consumer waste in India can start a couple of steps ahead from where we started. This is why we launched a series of articles sharing our learnings on collection, sorting, recycling and more. So, please, take a deep dive into textile waste in India!

 👀 Chapter 1: What does post-consumer textile waste in India look like?

🧺 Chapter 2: How is textile waste collected?

🧶 Chapter 3: How is textile waste sorted?

♻️ Chapter 4: Recycling, upcycling or downcycling – what can we do with post-consumer textiles?

🤔 Chapter 5: What are the problems in the bigger system?

So, what’s next?

 The chain is long, fragmented, and informal, and there are few reasonable solutions for dirty and torn post-consumer textile waste. But that does not mean it is impossible. At Enviu, we love a good challenge. We build businesses that create fundamental change. We leapfrog innovation and build on what is already there to challenge the status quo of each broken system. Our work spans multiple industries, from driving the transition towards a zero-footprint maritime sector and closing the tap on plastic waste by making reuse the new norm to setting up a 0% loss food value chain and realising a fair and circular apparel production value chain.

In short, we have set our sights on some of the world's biggest problems and have some game-changing plans up our sleeves! Within our Reweave venture-building program, we are building ventures that focus on sustainable production and creating value from waste.

We aim to recycle textile waste into new yarns and fabrics, produce without an environmental footprint, and sort and collect textile waste. Our primary aim is to create a circular and fair apparel production chain. By doing so, we aspire to generate dignified jobs for waste workers while ensuring our employees are treated with 100% respect.

We are creating innovative solutionswith our partners CAIF, supported by the Ikea Foundation and the H&M Foundation, to solve the textile waste problem in India. Our primary focus is implementing formal, streamlined methods of collecting textile waste at households, training waste workers to sort waste effectively, and developing new use cases for old and dirty textiles. We aim to design and validate an integrated Circular Textile Waste Management ("CTWM") model that valorises textile waste. We aspire to improve the textile and apparel industry's environmental footprint by delivering social impact through venture building and ecosystem building, livelihood generation, and creation of grassroots waste entrepreneurs. 

With GIZ and Concordia Textiles, we have built the technology and infrastructure needed to create a lasting collaborative ecosystem thatprovides solutions to organisations sourcing various kinds of sorted waste. Our collaboration with Concordia and Enviu is funded through the develoPPP, the program that GIZ implements on behalf of BMZ.

If you want to write about us, contact Alisha, our Communications Officer, at  alisha@enviu.org.