Bangladesh’s textile and apparel industry is one of the largest in the world-and with it comes one of its biggest challenges: An enormous stream of blended textile waste. But what if this challenge was also one of the country’s greatest economic and sustainability opportunities?
To explore this, Intellecap organized an interactive Capacity Building and Knowledge Dissemination workshop on August 28th in Dhaka for H&M Group’s business partners and suppliers.
This event was a key part of the Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains (hashtag#SWITCH2CE) program switchtocircular-eu, a global initiative co-funded by the European Union/ European Commission and the Government of Finland/ Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and led by UNIDO, dedicated to helping enterprises adopt circular economy practices.
Following an introduction to circular economy principles and an overview of the H&M Group-led SWITCH2CE pilot in partnership with textile-to-textile recycling innovator, Circ®, the day’s sessions centered on sharing key learnings for building a circular ecosystem:
𝐓𝐡𝐞 ‘𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’ – 𝐀 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞: The pilot proved that Circ’s textile-to-textile recycling technology can successfully transform blended post-industrial textile waste into high-quality fibers and then to garments, paving the way for product circularity in Bangladesh at scale. Circ was selected for its blended fiber recycling capabilities as well as its commitment to continuously assess and optimize their process to reduce environmental impact as they scale.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 ‘𝐇𝐨𝐰’ – 𝐀 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥: The workshop reinforced that technology alone cannot solve the problem and enable Bangladesh’s RMG sector to leverage this opportunity. A successful circular system requires building a robust local ecosystem for waste management, including enhancing renewable energy capacity and access, strengthening capacity for the collection, sorting, and segregation of textile waste to create a strong feedstock value chain.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲: the future of textile circularity in Bangladesh will be shaped by the integration of advanced technology with strong foundational processes and enabling ecosystem. With strengthening indigenous capacities and capabilities of the RMG sector as our north star, we will continue to build on these learnings to advocate for and accelerate Bangladesh’s transition to a truly circular ecosystem.
