India is one of the largest textile and apparel-sourcing regions in the world, with processing infrastructure and a skilled workforce for almost all activities ranging from spinning to apparel production, making it a key competitive sourcing destination for most global brands. Parallelly, India’s domestic consumer market is also growing at a CAGR of 10%. Both the production and consumption trends lead to a significant amount of textile waste generation.
Despite the absence of advanced technologies, the Indian textile recycling ecosystem has established a stronghold in mechanical recycling and the usage of manual sorting methods. Currently, the textile waste being generated and handled in India can be classified across three waste streams: pre-consumer, domestic post-consumer, and imported waste.
This study is an attempt to identify the potential opportunities for intervention and investment in textile waste management in India by understanding the current costs and business viability of the key stakeholders across the textile waste value chain.