Fashion For Good Toolkit To Manage Indian Textile Waste
Leveraging insights from Wealth in Waste, Fashion for Good has released a toolkit designed to revitalise textile waste in India.
A conference on ‘Sorting for Circularity India’ was held in New Delhi on December 1-2, hosted in collaboration with Laudes Foundation, IDH, Canopy, and Reverse Resources.
The event marks the launch of ‘Re-START’, a textile recovery alliance aiming to position India as a leading Next-Gen solutions hub.
“The Sorting for Circularity India toolkit is a milestone in our journey towards a waste-free world,” Katrin Ley, Managing Director, Fashion for Good said.
“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,” Ley added.
“We are excited to move beyond rhetoric with this powerful coalition of partners and translate our findings into a roadmap for concrete actions,” she stated.
In 2021, Fashion for Good launched the Sorting for Circularity India Project to organise the Indian textile waste market in a three-phase approach.
This was done to streamline, strengthen and foster the Indian textile waste market to drive the transition to a more circular economy that recaptures value to its maximum potential.
The project brought together various industry players including Fashion for Good partners Adidas, Levi Strauss & Co., PVH Corp., Target, Arvind Limited, Birla Cellulose, and Welspun India.
Fashion for Good innovators Reverse Resources, PICVISA, and Matoha; H&M, Primark, and TESCO also joined as external partners.
The project is supported through catalytic funding provided by Laudes Foundation and IDH, and knowledge support from Canopy and Circle Economy Foundation.
Drawing upon the invaluable insights gained throughout the project, Fashion for Good unveiled a toolkit designed to harness the untapped potential of textile waste in India.
Together, these resources provide valuable insights, assessments, and practical guidance to advance recycling in India’s textile industry.
According to Fashion for Good’s Wealth in Waste report, every year, 1,720 kilo tons of 100 percent cotton post-consumer domestic (PCD) textile waste remains unutilised in India due to the lack of proper collection and sorting systems.
With the upcoming surge of legislation on textile waste management, the value of post-consumer waste is expected to rise, making it crucial for India to develop necessary infrastructure for collection, sorting, and pre-processing.
