Recycling of Post-Consumer Apparel Waste in India: Channels for Textile Reuse

Abstract

There is an increasing amount of post-consumer textile waste that is generated in India with an estimated population of above 1.33 billion. But limited studies have been carried out on the channels of recycling of post- consumer apparel waste in India. Therefore, a pilot study was conducted among young people in the age group of 20-30 years in India, using online survey. Additional information has been collected through ethnographic studies and interviews and observations. Expert in the business of pre-owned goods has been interviewed. Results showed that almost half of the respondents of the survey in India would like to discard the clothes that are no more in use. There is a lack of awareness on the channels available for donation of used clothing, through most of the respondents were willing to donate. The donated clothing mostly consists of upper wears. The channels of post-consumer recycling of clothes are mostly NGOs who use it for charity or up-cycle it to new products using a community of artisans, who work for their livelihood. At present there are few Indian brands that create designer products by recycling of post- consumer apparel waste. The other alternative channel that has developed in India is re-sale of pre-owned clothing using online app of companies and brands. Few small-scale industries in India convert the post-consumer apparel waste to fibres which are generally used as fillers for mattress, pillows, cushion etc.in the unorganized sector or converted to recycled yarns.