New Delhi: India’s textile recycling market could reach USD 3.5 billion by 2030, with the potential to generate around one lakh green jobs, according to a report released on Tuesday by Union Textiles Minister Giriraj Singh.
The report titled “Mapping of Textile Waste Value Chain in India” provides a comprehensive assessment of textile waste generation, recovery pathways, recycling technologies and opportunities to strengthen circularity across India’s textile value chain.
The minister said that India’s textile sector, one of the largest in the world, has significant potential to lead the global transition towards sustainable and circular production systems.
He stated that India’s textile industry continues to expand rapidly, and it is important that this growth is aligned with sustainability goals.
The study report maps both pre-consumer and post-consumer textile waste streams, identifies recycling practices across clusters, documents emerging technologies and outlines policy recommendations to strengthen India’s circular textile ecosystem.
It estimates that India generates approximately 70.73 lakh tonnes of textile waste annually. Of this, 42 per cent originates from pre-consumer sources such as manufacturing waste, while 58 per cent arises from post-consumer disposal.
Cluster analysis shows that Panipat is emerging as a major hub for mechanical textile recycling, with waste from several textile clusters transported there for processing.
The report notes that developing recycling infrastructure at the cluster level across textile hubs could significantly improve efficiency and enable recycling closer to the source of waste generation.
According to the report, more than 70 per cent of the total textile waste is currently recovered and routed into recycling, upcycling, downcycling or reuse streams.
The findings further indicate that around 95 per cent of pre-consumer textile waste is recovered, reflecting the strength of recovery networks across the value chain.
The report highlights that the spinning sector has established a benchmark for closed-loop operations, with nearly 100 per cent of spinning waste reintegrated in situ into production.
Soft waste generated during spinning is immediately reused within the same process due to homogeneous waste streams, proximity between generation and processing and established quality standards for recycled inputs.
The analysis also notes that about 55 per cent of India’s post-consumer textile waste is diverted from landfills, largely through an extensive informal collection and sorting network.
This ecosystem sustains around 40-45 lakh livelihoods, predominantly women from marginalised communities engaged in the collection, sorting and redistribution of used textiles.
