H&M & HKRITA launch project for handling textile waste in Cambodia

The announcement was made by an international consortium initiated by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ Fabric project), HKRITA, Chip Mong Insee, Dakota Industri-al, H&M Foundation and VF Corporation, one of the leading apparel and footwear companies. A feasibility study is currently being launched to deploy the Green Machine in Cambodia by 2022, according to a press release by the H&M Foundation.

The fashion supply chain ranges from production of fibres to the retail channels. However, it is at the manufacturing stages where the most harmful environmental effects are created. The processes are resource intensive in which large amounts of water and chemicals are used. Moreover, an estimated 10-15% of the total fabric used to produce garments currently becomes waste already at the cutting stage. Today, most of it ends up in landfill or is burnt.

To create a more sustainable fashion future, circular practices are key. Therefore, GIZ through its FABRIC project, brought together all key partners along the garment supply chain to assess the industrial scale development of the Green Machine in Cambodia.

The Green Machine, developed by HKRITA with the support from H&M Foundation, is the world’s first technology that can separate and recycle polyester and cotton blend textiles at scale without any quality loss. Recycling of single materials has long been possible, but the recycling of blends, and cotton and polyester blends being the world’s most common type of textile, has not. The Green Machine has changed the game. The process uses only heat, water and less than 15 per cent of a biodegradable chemical to separate cotton and polyester materials in a closed loop system.

GIZ Fabric will support a feasibility study of The Green Machine in Cambodia so that the private partners could take an informed decision to deploy this cutting-edge technology to start waste recycling in Cambodia for the first time ever, by 2022.

“Better waste management will have a positive impact on communities’ resources such as water, air quality and land use. This will reduce long term stress factors and sources for conflict of different kinds. It will also create new jobs and a sense of pride,” Marc Beckmann, project director of GIZ Fabric, said in a statement.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)