Turning textile trash into treasure

Webinar on new insights on potential and impacts in local recycling systems in Bangladesh

Textile recycling is seen as key to a greener garment industry, with global brands pushing for circular solutions and digital traceability in response to climate change and EU regulations.

However, in Bangladesh’s informal sector, textile waste – known locally as jhoot – has long been recycled and resold, providing thousands of jobs.

In this webinar, researchers from Copenhagen Business School and BRAC University will present findings from the project “Climate Change and Global Value Chains in Bangladesh.” Based on interviews with factory managers, workers, NGOs, and experts, the study highlights how new recycling practices may disrupt existing local systems in the jhoot sector.

Extract of the key findings of the research project:

• A basic mapping of clothing/textile recycling value chains and industrial clusters in and around Dhaka shows that this is not a case of textile waste dumping, contrary to the popular imagery often used in media and NGO reports.
• The informal sector in Bangladesh plays an important role in the recycling of post-production textile waste, including the export of such waste to countries like India, and also in providing employment for women in the informal sector.
• However, there is a need for interventions in the sector, as working conditions are poor, and many workers in the clothing/textile industry are negatively affected by climate change.

Sign up here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aSM3F7xcTyuMfyAAuFjZ4g

Program: 

• Rumi Akter: Inside Bangladesh’s Garment Recycling Boom
• Aysha Siddika: Working Conditions and Climate Risks in Garment Waste Work
• Samiya A. Selim & Sameera Zaman: Recycling and Resilience: Climate Adaptation in Bangladesh’s Garment Sector
• Upon the presentations of findings, we will get an overview of RBC risks in circular value chains from the OECD’s Centre for Responsible Business Conduct, represented by
• Andrea Schill: RBC risks in circular value chains and key considerations for companies’ due diligence

Panel discussion:

With this new knowledge and perspectives, we will host a panel discussion on what practitioners and policy makers should do, both in the EU and Bangladesh, to promote an efficient and inclusive circular economy of textiles:

• Vidya Amrit Khan, Deputy Managing Director, Desh Group of Companies,
• Marie Busck, Chief Sustainability Officer, Dansk Fashion & Textile,
• Mark Draeck, Chief Technical Advisor of the SWITCH2CE Project at UNIDO Headquarters (United Nations Industrial Development Organization,
• Claus Teilmann Petersen, stakeholder engagement and human rights manager at BESTSELLER.

Target group: The webinar is open to practitioners and stakeholders, wishing to deepen their understanding of responsible practices of textile recycling – and gain concrete knowledge of how to enforce a more efficient and inclusive practice.

Time: June 17th, 10.00-11.30 (CEST)
Sign up: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_aSM3F7xcTyuMfyAAuFjZ4g