A campaign to reduce the amount of clothing going to waste represents an opportunity to provide the UAE with a significant financial boost, the country's Minister for Economy has said.
Abdulla bin Touq made his comments on Sunday, the culmination of a three-day community event called Fabric of Possibility, held at Abu Dhabi's Yas Mall, to launch the initiative.
The aim of the scheme is to significantly reduce, through recycling and remanufacturing, the 220,000 tonnes of textile waste produced across the country each year.
Textile waste should increasingly be viewed as an economic opportunity rather than a disposal challenge, the minister said.
The 220,000 tonnes discarded annually could be transformed into new products or raw materials through recycling and repurposing, he added, as the installation at Yas Mall demonstrated.
Each visitor received a reusable “Bag of Possibility” made from jute canvas and upcycled white kandura fabric. Residents can fill the bags with unwanted clothes, towels, linens and other textiles before returning them through Naseej's network of collection partners and recycling points.
Khuloud Al Nuwais, chief sustainability officer at Emirates Foundation, said the drive was designed to encourage people to rethink what happens to clothes when they are no longer needed.
“As individuals, we make choices in our daily life. One of these choices is to discard the textiles or garments that we no longer use,” she said.
“What we’re trying to communicate to UAE community members and educate them on is the amount of textile waste being generated in the UAE, which is around 220,000 tonnes annually.”
She said residents faced two choices when dealing with unwanted clothing: throwing it away or helping to give it a second life.
Improving resources
Etienne Petit, chief executive of Abu Dhabi's waste management company Tadweer, said the programme forms part of a wider strategy to reduce dependence on landfills and improve resource recovery across Abu Dhabi.
“We have a simple criterion: 80 per cent diversion from landfill by 2031,” he said. “We are building large capacity around Abu Dhabi, including one of the major waste-to-energy plants in the world, one of the major mechanical treatment facilities and a large number of other facilities to be able to treat waste and avoid it going to landfill. In parallel, to be sure that it is not going to landfill, we have 11 landfills to close in three years.”
Textile waste, Mr Petit said, presented unique challenges because different materials require different handling and treatment methods.
He said the success of textile recycling depends on separating materials at source rather than mixing them with other forms of waste. “The idea of collection is to segregate from the source and this is what I call awareness,” he said.
“People should be aware that textile is not like food, is not like paper, so it is a different waste. It is also our responsibility to build the collection system, [and make it] the most appropriate collection system for people.”
Most discarded textiles end up in landfill because they are mixed with food waste, cardboard and other materials, making recycling difficult.
“The problem is if you have a big bag containing textile, food, paperboard and cardboard all together,” he said. “I cannot take it because it is contaminated material.”
Creating a functioning textile recycling industry requires investment, technology and collaboration between public and private-sector partners, Mr Petit added.
“Sustainability means also financially sustainable,” he said. “If I am giving one partner recycled yarn or a new recycled fabric, he should be able to use it to reproduce textiles.”
While no dedicated textile recycling plant has yet been announced, Tadweer and its partners are studying various options.
The next steps
Future plans could include dedicated collection points in communities as well as expanded retailer take-back schemes. “We are starting,” Mr Petit said. “We will also have specific collection points in communities.”
Drawing on examples from Europe, he said successful systems relied on strong collection networks, specialised treatment facilities and markets for recycled materials. “All material is good for something,” he said.
The long-term ambition was to ensure textiles remain in use for as long as possible, whether through reuse, recycling or conversion into new products rather than being discarded in landfill, he said.
