Three categories of textile

1.1 Background Study

“Waste is defined as anything left over or superfluous, as excess material or by-products, anything rejected or useless, worthless or unwanted.” D Tanya and K Kathy, 1997. They also depicts three categories of textile and apparel waste in ‘Textile waste Lifecycle model’ namely, post-producer waste generated by manufacturers, pre-consumer waste generated by retailers and post-consumer waste generated by the public.

For this research paper, post-producer waste is taken into consideration. In specific, denim waste from the supply chain industries is studied for the purpose of its management. Since Denim fabric is considered to be the toughest fabric and constitutes the maximum amount of cotton which is considered to be organic in nature.

Thus it is appropriate to find its recovery system so that no denim waste is land filled or burnt in the atmosphere.

In the research paper-“The Textile waste Lifecycle” in Clothing and Textile Research Journal, author discusses the growing attention towards solid waste management by textile and apparel industry to environmental responsibility and expanded efforts to reduce disposal of post-producer textile waste in landfills. Authors said that the Environmental awareness and subsequently the word “recycling” has been in common usage for 25 years. But finding ways of recycling textile waste as an alternative to landfill disposal is an ecological problem on which textile/apparel industry is already working. Though they are still working on to develop a Textile waste Lifecycle model to reduce the textile waste in all the categories of textile and apparel waste.

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Authors while introducing in the above research paper discusses that the vast majority of solid waste stream is contributed by post-producer waste from the industry including fiber producers, textile mills and fabric and apparel manufacturers. Therefore, “Recycling, a large component of the bigger environmental movement, has grown rapidly in recent years”. (D Tanya and K Kathy, 1997) He also mentioned that the interest towards recycling is due to many factors including green consumerism, rising waste disposal cost, an explosion of legislative initiatives and mandates and the evolution of waste recycling into smoothly running commodity industry.

Discussed in the 2nd International conference of Textile Research Division under the topic “Textile waste-material Recycling” by (G. M. EI-Nouby, H. A. Azzam, S. T. Mohamed, and M. N. El-Sheikh, 2005) that large amounts of cloth scrap, clippings and loose sample scraps are created at “cut and sew” plants where garments are manufactured. These scraps of waste-material comprises of 15-30% of all types of garments manufactured.

Also in the recent study in the research paper “Recycling Textile waste-Newer Dimensions” by S. Aishwarya(2010) found the total cotton fiber consumption is estimated to be 26 lakh tons per year, of which approximately 2,10, 000 of cotton dust which is a micro dust and also considered as a non-saleable waste which is produced during yarn manufacturing process.

Due to environmental concerns, a large number of companies are currently developing manufacturing processes using alternative materials for their products and seeking new markets for the sub-products of their first-line production as said by the authors M.G Gomes, R. Fangueiro, C.Gonilho (2006). They also points that due to the higher prices for raw materials and man-made fibers, it will be utmost importance to recycle some of the waste. Linked to this, they also states that companies who want to stay in business have to be good environmentalists.

But major issues facing the recycling efforts of Textile and apparel manufacturers are lack of market for recycled products and cost of processes as discussed by (D Tanya and K Kathy, 1997). They also did industry research which has indicated that small companies may have less waste to recycle which makes the cost of recycling too high. The problem is in particular concern for small manufactures. Therefore, it is important to find the cost-benefit of textile recycling industry.

Larney and Annette, 2004 has also investigated the South African textile industry in regard to recycling practices, interest and willingness of the manufacturers and the problems & barriers to enter the market for recycled products. The questionnaire and mail survey was done considering 103 textile manufactures including small, medium and large textile manufactures. Out of 10 statements asked in the questionnaire, rank wise, most of the companies would purchase carpets from recycled textile materials, then they said that they would manufacture apparel or other textile products made from recycled textile materials and so on. The last rank was given to the statement that “It is not economically feasible for my company to recycled textile material to produce new apparel or other textile products.” and “It is always more expensive for my company to use recycled textile materials then it is to use new textile materials in the production of apparel or other textile products”. On the other hand, companies agreed to the fact that market strategy that creates a strong ultimate demand is an appropriate strategy to use with apparel or other textile products made from recycled textile materials.

The research concluded that uncertainty of market strategies could be the economic barriers, as textile recycling is not cost effective in general even though most industries advised the strong trade demand through market strategy because then only the market would be moved forward.

Therefore, it is still important to identify applications of textile waste apart from landfilling the waste which is considered as the major gap in the industry.

Therefore, for the purpose of this research, it is important to find considerable denim waste (denim fabric which is constitutes the maximum cotton consumption and is considered to be organic in nature) from the industry which can be further analyzed to find its various applications (which means its recovery options) and the result may help in building “return service” for yarn manufacturers/denim manufacturers through denim apparel manufactures locally.

1.2 Project Objectives

The objectives are to study the options for the recovery and recycling the denim wastes and to find the economic feasibility and opportunities by applying this to the supply chain from denim manufacturing through the Denim apparel manufacturing.

In this the following objectives can be confirmed:

1. To assess the amount of denim waste generated by the Denim apparel manufacturers
2. To study what happens to denim waste and price considerations of rag dealers locally
3. To analyze the various applications of denim waste reuse/recycling
4. To recommend a “return service” for denim scrap locally

CHAPTER-2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature Review is analyzing previous researchers work to have an idea of what other people have done in the same area of study. The project revolves around classifying the prospects of industrial denim waste and its cost efficiency.

Following sections of Literature Review discusses objective-wise researchers study. Firstly it will talk about the study on the amount of waste estimated in Textile Industry, then it reveals whether informal or any government organizations are involved in recycling/reuse practices, then finding the applications of denim recycling and finally looking at the cost effectiveness of the same.

The Literature Review involve research papers of renowned authors, or any other articles from Internet or otherwise. It will involve Secondary data which means the data is collected from Secondary source all over the world and then summarized in the form of my own analyses author wise in each section. Although in Chapter-4, data collection in the form of Primary data is viewed by consulting Denim apparel manufacturers, rag dealers and recyclers to identify and facilitate the objectives of the research paper.

2.1 The amount and forms of Post-producer textile waste generated or recycled

In the research paper-“The Textile Waste Lifecycle”, the authors revealed that the vast majority of solid waste stream is contributed by post-producer waste from the industry. For textiles, it was estimated between 1.5 and 1.9 billion pounds of new fiber and fabric wastes annually by fiber producers, textile mills and fabric manufactures in USA. Out of 2% of the total nation’s annual post-producer textile waste(which amounts to 11.2 billion tons), apparel manufacturers waste contributed 450 to 600 million tons annually in the form of apparel cuttings. Media attention to various U.S industries potential for ecological damage as contribution to sold waste stream has pressured the textile industry to respond with alternatives other than landfilling waste according to the author. And this environmental pressure has had dramatic impact the last ten years as companies have added environmentally sound management philosophy. Therefore, the authors analyzed a “Textile Waste Lifecycle model” which is also shown in Figure: 1 to show the integration of post-producer and post-consumer textile waste with resalable and reusable new products. Also the model contribute to the philosophy that while everything must go somewhere, there are more options than landfilling.

The above figure of Textile Waste Lifecycle Model reveals that Post-producer textile waste may be disposed of in three ways. Firstly, it may enter the solid waste stream and end in landfills or waste incinerators. The second option is converting the solid waste into energy to power the manufacturing process. The third option is to sell the waste to textile waste recycler who shreds garments, fabric or fiber waste into new fiber. The author also quoted various examples of textile recyclers in order to establish the fact that what they are doing with the post-producer textile waste which is discussed in section 2.2.Authors in the end of this research paper provides further framework for further dialogue about what constitutes the textile waste and finding means by which textile waste is or can be disposed. Likewise, many avenues for further study were established.

There are still voids and gaps in the market so as to understand what constitutes the textile waste. Therefore authors in this research left initiatives for further finding the applications of various textile waste which forms the part of the objectives of research paper.

Another recent survey by T.H. Christensen, G. Bhander, H. Lindvall, A.W. Larsen, T. Fruergaard, A. Damgaard, S. Manfredi, A. Boldrin, C. Riber and M. Hauschild, 2008 is also done to calculate the volume of textile production waste materials and the recycling level by Lithuanian textile, clothing and soft furniture production enterprise. 18 textile companies, 12 apparel industry companies and 10 companies of soft furniture production have been surveyed by questioning. A significant part of textile production waste is land filled. The transportation of textile waste for land filling requires additional investments including the continuously increasing pressure of taxation for waste disposal and transportation costs. With the EU Environmental Law getting stricter, the process of waste land filling will become more loss-making. The Resolution prohibits burying of all recyclable waste, including textile waste, from the year 2015 and prohibits burying of all residual waste, except the cases when the burying is inevitable or a danger arises, from the year 2025.

The overall waste amount throughout the entire cycle of a textile fabric production from yarn manufacturing to fabric sewing may constitute upto 40-50% of raw materials quantity. On the other hand, the amount of textile waste generated in the apparel industry companies covers the interval of 3-22% in proportion to the raw materials used.

The main part of all the waste (62.5%) consists of textile material cuttings. These are cuttings of different size with dyeing defects, stained, fine knitted fabric waste, woven fabric borders, weighted cuttings of woven fabrics (0.1-2mm length), and cutouts from garment sewing industry.

Following Table-1 shows the waste amount and recycling degree according to enterprise type

TABLE-1

The research has shown the amount of waste produced by different industries, and how much it is reused, recycled and hw much thrown in landfill.Figure:2, 3 proves that more than half of the textile industry waste goes in the landfill and very less amount of waste is recycled. This research has revealed that how waste is going to put pressure on each and every industry, as they are already spending on transportation of waste and in future it is said that they also have to pay taxes for this waste disposal. By 2015 government will not allow to dispose off the waste in the landfill. The research only looked at the waste, its amount and how it is going to create problems in the future. But there are no ways how to recover or recycle is discussed.

In 2005, the 2nd Conference of Textile Research Division already discussed “Ways and Means” to Textile -waste Recycling by authors, G. M. EI-Nouby, H. A. Azzam, S. T. Mohamed, and M. N. El-Sheikh which is discussed in following section 2.2

Therefore, from the above section it can be concluded that there is no proper study which has been witnessed by Denim textile/or apparel industry in specific. Though there are lot of studies done by various textile/apparel industries irrespective of specific industries such as Denim industry to identify the amount of waste and its further prospects.

2.2 The Recyclers and theirRecycling applications of Textile waste

The 2nd Conference meetings Journal-“Textile Waste-Material Recycling”-Part-I- Ways and Means” includes the extensive coverage of previous work. It also attempts to convert textile waste material into useful forms, non-woven fabrics or spun yarns. The methods and machines used in textile waste material recycling were also covered to increase the ability of Egyptian textile industry to compete in the era of open markets and globalization.

The above figure: 5 show the technical solution and non-technical solution to manage textile waste which is also discussed in Figure: 1 by Domina and Kathy to integrate the textile waste among all the categories including post-producer waste, pre-consumer waste and post-consumer waste. But here the question arises that what recyclers are doing in order to find various applications of the textile waste material.

Therefore, D, Tanya and K Kathy, 1997 in the research paper-“The Textile Waste Lifecycle” conducted a survey and found various textile recyclers and what they are actually doing to reduce post-producer textile waste. Following are the textile recyclers namely,

Crown Textile recycler, where fiber makes up 60% of the all solid waste, of which 95% is recycled as energy

Leigh Fibers Inc., a textile and apparel waste recycler that purchases bundled textile waste such as carding, fabric scraps and thread, shreds waste into fibers which are then sold.

Eco Fiber Canada, Inc. makes cotton yarn from fiber and fabric waste to be then made into a variety of apparel products.

Levis Strauss and company has recycled 400000 pounds of denim scrap into paper

Cone mills recycle polypropylene wrapping from cotton bales, polyester and other materials.

Russell Corp. rebales its cutting waste for resale or returns it into fiber for use in spinning

Burlington recycles old jeans and denim scrap into new denim fabric which Levis Strauss makes into Jeans

According to the survey, both the author’s reports that 73% of the post-producer fabric waste is recycled annually, approximately 150 million pounds are reprocessed into fiber, 200 million pounds are sorted by color and exported to respun, and 100 million pounds are used to make wipers. They also said that due to the difficulty in separating laminated fabrics and high usage of blended yarns and fabrics, only about 2% of industrial fabric waste are recycled. Since our project aims at Denim waste recycling, there should be no difficulty of such kind as in blended yarns and fabrics.

One of the Denim Return Project done by Bradmill Group in Denim Park in 1999 revealed that Denim waste are generated such as warp tailings, denim selvage, fabric waste and other smaller waste. The group also found the opportunities for the recycling and reuse for denim wastes and to provide this to a totally a recycling activity for their group as well as fulfilling a need for waste reduction at Denim Park facility.

The opportunities of denim reuse that Bradmill Group investigated are:

1. Shredding and Recycling into a new spinning operation
2. Shredding and Reuse as a fiber base for paper and cardboard
3. Sorting and packaging for sale locally and overseas
4. Briquetting for combustion in Bradmill Undare boilers
5. Shredding and use as filling material for a range of non-woven applications including wadding for furniture, cushions, pillows and car wadding
6. Shredding and use in mushroom production
7. Shredding for use as an absorbent material(mainly for oil spills)
8. Use of large scraps as polishing rags

Certain aspects are identified by Bradmill, 1999 which affect the recyclability of denim waste which are as follows:

1. Fiber length, which is identified as critical to the end application. Short length fibers which are less than 3mm cannot be respun, whereas long length fibers are suitable for respinning
2. Impurities (such as oil, dirt, vegetable and metal contamination), is another critical aspect of fiber reuse which can cause serious hazards in reprocessing.
3. Sizing is a starchy material which is required during weaving operations. Therefore, waste fabrics/fibers require desizing as Sizing will affect fiber absorbency, which will reduce its effectiveness in oil spill collection, paper production, and may reduce its usability in other non-woven applications.
4. Lastly, Color in the fiber can have a positive or negative effect on recyclability. Since residual colors in denim fibers many affect the final product if it has a particular application For example: high quality white paper.

Some recycling operations require use colored fibers sorted into colors for respinning. Careful color mixing of fibers to achieve specified colors without requiring dyeing. This type of operation requires cost-cutting input of approximately 250 tonnes of waste per month whereas Bradmill produces approximately 20 tonnes per month.

A basic breakdown of reuse fiber requirements is discussed in Table: 2 according to the survey done by Bradmill.

Again the major issues facing the recycling efforts of textile and apparel manufacturers are lack of market for recycled products and cost of processing as also discussed by the famous authors D Tanya and K Kathy, 1997

Therefore, there are still gaps in the market to find the cost-benefit (or cost effectiveness) of the opportunities of Denim reuse/recycling business. In the section 2.3 certain researches have been compiled to analyze the full cost and cost-benefit of recycling business of solid waste management.

TABLE: 2

Another recent research by S. Aishwariya in the research paper “ Recycling Textile waste-Newer dimensions(2010) found that willow waste(which is a short fiber waste considered as non-salable and also just disposed off as landfills) in India according to the unforeseen statistical report amounts to 80,000-85,000 tones per annum. Therefore, this non-resalable can be collected, processed and converted into biocompost by the use of vermicomposting and enzymes technology which can be a very convincing effort to reduce and recycle waste. “Vermicomposting in the broad sense can be termed as waste minimization which is a very effective technology for managing solid organic wastes, into highly beneficial and valuable compost that can be used as supplement to increase soil fertility.”

2.3 Cost Analysis of Textile Recycling business

B Margaret and P Paul, 1998 talks about the real cost of waste in the research paper -“The waste minimization of food and drink industry” and explains that “The cost of waste is not only the cost of getting rid of it, but also the value of what you are getting rid of. According to the authors, the real cost of waste can be divided into two categories, the visible costs and the hidden cost.

But it is said that in the apparel industry, efforts are made towards waste minimization but still there is a lot of waste generated as discussed in section 2.1 of this chapter. Because, nowadays automated grading and optimized placements of garment pieces within a marker are powerful, but also optimizing the mapping of the markers to the different rolls of fabric is the key to optimizing fabric consumption and lowering costs. (Retrieved from a solution case study “Integrated Solutions Increase Efficiency and Reduce Waste in Clothing Manufacturing” by REACH technologies)

Therefore, S Michael, D Mathew, M Scott, G Cathleen, E Matt, G Beth, 1997 of the “Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance(DPPEA)” by the department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources conducted a study on “Analysis of the Full Costs of Solid Waste Management for North Carolina local governments.” The study found that the cost-effectiveness of recycling program (compared to solid waste collection and disposal) correlate the local governments recycling rate i.e. the local governments that achieve high recycling rates are more likely to operate recycling programs that are less expensive per ton than solid waste collection and disposal.

The Full cost Analysis (FCA) helps local governments understand expenditures associated with collection, disposal and recycling so that the true costs and benefits of each sectors are understood.

The study presents cost analyses by 15 North Carolina local governments and concentrated on cost of residential solid waste collection, solid waste disposal and

The study presents and analyzes the quantitative from the completed full cost analysis worksheet of residential solid waste collection, disposal and recycling. All governments used the same methodology of identifying the Full cost work sheet as a standard format.

To determine the efficiency measurements, cost-per-ton figures for 15 North Carolina local governments are taken as a sample of study. The Recycling cost includes the cost of collection, processing and marketing of materials. In the Figure: 6, It can be seen that recycling cost appears to be most costly solid waste management option per ton. This comparison is explored in more detail in Fig: 7 which show that relative cost effectiveness of recycling compared to solid waste collection and disposal cost is directly correlated to local government recycling rates.

Finally, the research concluded three tangible conclusions:

1. Full cost analysis provides a foundation for budgetary decisions
2. Recycling can cost as little or less than solid waste management
3. Local governments that achieve high recycling rates are more likely to operate recycling programs that are less expensive per ton than solid waste collection and disposal.

That means there is a positive correlation between recycling rates and low recycling costs (compared to solid waste management) for 15 participating local governments.

Therefore, from the above three sections discussed in this chapter, it can be concluded that a lot of studies are being done to find the opportunities of textile waste recycling and finding the positive correlation between recycling rates and low recycling cost. But, there is still a gap in the market to identify and analyze the opportunities of denim waste recycling and finding the best possible alternative applications of denim waste reuse in India.

CHAPTER-3 METHODOLOGY

The project waste management in the Apparel Industry is taken because of the global scenario. So in order to contribute to the noble cause this project will assess the amount of waste in the Denim apparel industry in specific and emphasize on the alternative use of Denim apparel waste.

For carrying out the project, data needs to be collected and this can be divided into Primary and Secondary data collection. For this project, Primary data is the data (or information) which is collected from the Denim apparel Industries in Delhi/NCR and other textile waste members in the supplychain Delhi/NCR and other areas.

For collecting Secondary data, information from e-books, e-journal articles etc. will be require to find out what all researches are carried out in this field, what is the result of this researches, how denim apparel waste can be an input for any other industry, which areas have not been thoroughly covered etc.

Objective:1 To assess the forms and amount of denim waste generated by the Denim apparel manufacturers

Sampling Frame: 3 Denim apparel Manufacturers

Sample Technique: Convenience and Judgmental technique

Research Design: Descriptive

Data Collection: Primary data collection(Case Study) to analyze whether there is a considerable amount of waste in the Denim apparel Industry and if yes, then finding the various forms of Denim waste (through photography) for further analyzing the scope for the same

Objective:2 To find the required information from recyclers in India

Sampling Frame: 2 Textile/Denim waste recyclers in Delhi/NCR

Sample Technique: Convenience technique

Research Design: Descriptive/Exploratory

Data Collection:

Primary Data Collection(Depth Interview) to identify what is happening to the denim/textile waste collected, what’s the market and future scope. (Photography)to show variety of denim waste collected by recyclers, the working environment and processes involved in their premises.

Objective: 3To identify and analyze the opportunities out of Denim waste Recycling

Sampling Frame: Data collected from Denim recyclers and Denim apparel Manufacturers

Sample Technique: Judgmental technique

Research Design: Descriptive/Exploratory

Data Collection: Primary data collection (In-depth Interview) from recyclersto understand the processes involved at their end.

Objective:4To recommend a “return service” for Denim scrap locally

Sampling Frame: Data collection from Textile waste Recyclers

Sample Technique: Judgmental technique

Research Design: Descriptive/Exploratory

Data Collection: Primary Data Collection (Case Study)- to finally recommend a return service which might help in adding something to the environment

Objective:1 To assess the forms and amount of denim waste generated by the Denim apparel manufacturers

This objective focuses on identifying the amount and forms of Denim waste generated by Denim apparel industry. Therefore, a pilot study was done in order to calculate the amount of denim waste in each department which is shown in Table-3 below. And forms of wastes are shown in different departments through photographs followed by Table-3

TABLE-3

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