What can one do with 220,000 tonnes of textiles? A savvy clothes manufacturer could make it stretch to more than a billion T-shirts. A factory that makes jeans could use it to produce anywhere between 220 million to 440 million pairs, depending on weight. A tailor in the UAE could fashion about 220 million to 370 million kanduras or 150 million to 440 million abayas.
What this rough thought experiment highlights is that 220,000 tonnes of textiles is a considerable amount of material, whatever use it’s put to. And yet, a report from UAE state news agency Wam this week found that this is the amount of textile waste that is produced each year in this country. Factory offcuts, used clothing, damaged material and unused inventory – all can end up in landfill. At the same time, the resources needed to produce replacements require huge amounts of water, energy and chemicals.
This state of affairs looks set to change with news that President Sheikh Mohamed has directed the launch of Naseej, the National Initiative for Textile Circularity. This is to serve as a “national platform co-ordinating policy, industry action, research and public engagement across the textile value chain”, Wam reports.
Naseej – Arabic for “fabric” – will introduce a series of national programmes to support sustainable textile practices, strengthen collection and recycling infrastructure and advance research. It is hoped that consumers will soon regard textile waste in the same way they already negatively perceive food and plastics waste.
The project comes at an opportune time. Last year, US Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for urgent action to curb the textile industry’s effect on the environment. The UN has claimed that so-called fast fashion – the mass production of low-cost clothing – is responsible for up to 8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, consumes 215 trillion litres of water annually and relies on thousands of chemicals, “many of them harmful to human health and ecosystems”.
But there is more to the UAE’s latest initiative than appealing to environmental or waste concerns. Cutting down on waste and improving recycling rates also make good economic sense. Circular textiles can create local jobs, new businesses and boost exports. Doing so also aligns with the country’s diversifying manufacturing models, such as the Make it in the Emirates campaign and Operation 300bn industrial strategy.
The Emirates’ continuing campaigns against food waste and single-use plastics have shown that the country is strategically and systematically fostering a responsible and conscientious approach to prosperity. Naseej, which can trace its origins back to the Cop28 summit on climate change hosted in Dubai in 2023, is the latest part of this policy framework that touches various aspects of consumption and the economy.
