India Needs A Policy ‘Rafu’ To Recycle Its Piling Textile Waste

Every year, the country generates over 1 million tonnes of post-consumer textile waste, most of which ends up in landfills or incinerators. Fast fashion has only made the problem worse, with clothes discarded after as little as an hour of use. 

There’s no national policy yet to guide how this waste should be collected, sorted, or recycled. Textile recycling, touted as a way to close the loop and create a circular economy, remains a patchy and largely informal industry. 

While consumers need to be informed about the perils of buying (and discarding) fast fashion, it’s not individual action, but systemic policy pushes that can reduce environmental damage and create a market for recycled textiles. 

The Recycling Chain

The first step of recycling cloth is getting the cloth. Used clothes or waste fabric are procured from factories. It then needs to be processed into reusable fibres. These fibres can be spun into yarn or turned into products like insulation, stuffing, construction material, and, in some instances, even concrete. 

There are broadly two ways of recycling textiles: Mechanical, which includes shredding fabric into fibres, or chemical, which breaks down fabric into raw materials like cellulose or polyester.

In India, mechanical recycling is more common. Panipat in Haryana is known as the ‘cast-off capital’ of the world due to the amount of discarded clothes that make it there. 

Wool and cotton cloth are shredded and re-spun into low-grade yarn for blankets or mops. However, this process shortens fibre length and reduces fabric quality, limiting reuse. 

It also raises health concerns for the workers who work there. While this is a rags-to-riches story, it’s also a riches-to-rags story. 

Barriers To A Circular Economy

The biggest challenge is the lack of a formal collection system for textile waste. Most used clothes in India are either passed down, resold in second-hand markets, or discarded. Municipal waste systems do not sort textiles separately, and there are no extended producer responsibility (EPR) rules that make clothing brands accountable for their products after use.

Sorting waste by fabric type is another hurdle. Recycling cotton, polyester, and blends requires different technologies, but identifying and separating them is labour-intensive and rarely done at scale. 

Recycled fibre is often more expensive or lower quality than new fibre, making it unattractive for manufacturers without regulatory or financial incentives.

The Policy Push

To support recycling, experts recommend mandating EPR for textiles, setting clear recycling targets for brands, and funding collection and sorting infrastructure. 

India has solid waste, e-waste, and plastic waste rules, but no specific regulations for textiles. A separate textile waste management policy could set roles for municipalities, manufacturers, collectors, and recyclers, and set minimum recycling targets.

Fiscal incentives could help too, like reduced GST on recycled fabrics or subsidies for recycling units can make a difference.

Without such steps, the country risks being buried under the fashion footprint of itself and the world.