We mapped the landscape of pre-consumer textile waste in India and here’s what we learned.
According to some estimates, up to 25% of fabric is lost during the garment cutting and making process[1]. Considering India is a global hub of apparel production, there is clearly a substantial quantity of pre-consumer waste emerging from local production units and tailoring set ups. Surprisingly, there is still no consolidated study on estimating these amounts. With limited research available on these aspects, the quantities of waste generation are yet to be credibly estimated[2]. What is known, however, is that textile waste is the third largest source of municipal solid waste in India[3].
Most of this waste is sold to the large and informal economy of waste workers at nominal amounts of Rs 6-10 per kilo[4]. Commonly known as “chindi-wallas”, and many belonging to the nomadic Waghri community of Gujarat, this is the invisible force behind the recycling of textile and in fact most forms of dry waste in India. They have traditionally done the work of collecting, repairing and re-selling used clothing from households around India, driving product life extension through low-cost, cash-based trading[5].
These collected garments and scraps make their way to the numerous informal second-hand clothing markets around the country, such as Mumbai’s “Fashion Street” and Delhi’s Janpath. Mapping specific enterprises operating in this space is an uphill battle because of the total lack of organization and oversight — these are primarily individuals engaging in cash-based transactions, with no paper trail.
Independent chindi-wallas may also sell this waste to mid-sized aggregators, who are able to collect relatively larger quantities of similar types of waste, which is then sold onward through the following channels:
- To small traders and merchants to convert into products like low-cost children’s clothes
- To industries that use it for downcycling, e.g., cement factories, road laying, car seat stuffing, etc.
- To factories for use as rags to wipe oil and grease from machinery — after one use, these rags are landfilled since they cannot be cleaned
- To mattress makers who downcycle it into stuffing for low-cost pillows and mattresses
- This waste can also make it to recyclers — primarily in Panipat where it is mechanically recycled into low-cost and poor-quality blankets for the army, trains, prisons, and donation via Red Cross.
The mark-up on the original cost is not very high and chindi-wallas typically remain trapped in a cycle of poverty and hand-to-mouth existence, travelling long distances to factories to collect and sell waste.
Waste workers are on one hand the backbone of the textile waste management value chain in India, but on the other hand also completely unorganized and disaggregated.
If you’re working on innovative solutions to organize and improve textile waste management in India, contact us!
References:
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4796196/
[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323575723_Recycling_of_Post-Consumer_Apparel_Waste_in_India_Channels_for_Textile_Reuse
[3] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/circular-economy-need-of-the-hour-to-minimize-textile-waste-study/articleshow/63583328.cms
[4] https://globalrec.org/law-report/india/
[5] https://thewire.in/politics/waghri-and-chindhiwaali-workers
