ಉಪಕ್ರಮಗಳು

Creating Livelihoods in Textile Waste Management

Bengaluru, like all cities in India, is facing a massive influx of textile waste. According to the Indian Textile Journal, it is estimated that more than 1 million tons of textiles are thrown away every year, with households discarding the highest proportion.

In 2018, Hasiru Dala piloted an initiative titled ‘Hasiru Batte’ (Green Cloth) to find alternatives to textiles that were discarded. Our survey of 15 DWCCs that are supported by Hasiru Dala (submitted to the BBMP) from wards with a robust source segregation and a fully functional DWCC, shows cloth waste comprises 7-12% of the total dry waste collected.

ಇನ್ನಷ್ಟು ಓದಿ

ಸವಾಲುಗಳು

Hasiru Dala’s challenge during the process of integrating textile waste management as a stream of collection and handling in established DWCC processes was a complex and time-consuming exercise.

One of the main challenges was that the lack of systematic collection of textile waste as a separate stream makes it very difficult to find a market for reusable textiles. It is not en ough to collect the material – we needed to be able to send it to processers who would bring it back into the circular economy.

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ನಮ್ಮ ಕಾರ್ಯವಿಧಾನ

Our approach is centered around dignity in labour for waste workers. As a new initiative our work is centred around finding and designing workflows that will have the maximum reach for reuse and recycling, and exploring markets which will accept textile waste for recycling.

Weaving Solutions: Understanding the Textile Waste Crisis in Bengaluru

Our Initial Efforts at Textile Waste Collection and Management

At the DWCCs

At the present, the Hasiru Batte project works in 8 DWCCs across Bengaluru. 40 waste pickers are now working on textile waste in these centres. e have provided 12 different types of training on sorting, use of  machines (such as a cloth cutting machine for removal of disruptors).

Information, Education, Communication

As with all waste management, continuous awareness and consciousness raising with the residents of the ward is a foundational need for proper textile waste management.

Residents are made aware of the need for keeping a separate stream of textile waste which is clean and dry. (Proper methods of collection intimate garments are also explained.)

We saw an almost immediate increase in the amount of useable, re-useable and recyclable cloth material coming to the centres.

Expansion

We are exploring the possibility of setting up these streams of textile waste collection in other cities across Karnataka.

Kannada