Navi Mumbai: Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) commissioner Kailas Shinde presented the pilot model of the corporation’s Textile Reprocessing Facility (TRF), one of its kind in the country, at the National Summit on Textiles for Global Markets in New Delhi on Thursday. The presentation was made during a special session on Quality, Sustainability, Certification and Procurement Decisions: Establishing India as a Preferred Global Procurement Hub, under the topic Municipality-State Collaboration Framework, which was attended by Union Textiles minister Giriraj Singh, who felicitated Shinde at the summit for this innovative project that is described as the only such facility across the country being run in coordination with Ministry of Textiles.In his presentation, Shinde said urban local bodies should be recognised as important players in the textile recycling value chain and that they could emerge as collectors of raw materials for the circular economy of the textile industry. He said cities had the necessary infrastructure, citizen contact centres and 3R (reduce, recycle, reuse) centres, waste collection network and practical implementation capacity to create a reliable supply of sorted textile waste for the recycling industry, citing various examples.He added that the TRF implemented by NMMC in collaboration with the Textile Committee, run by the Ministry of Textiles, Govt of India, emerged as a successful model and that more than 50k families benefited from direct support. “Under the initiative, more than 300 women were trained to make various items from textile waste, providing sustainable livelihood opportunities through self-help groups. The project also reduced waste by preventing textile waste from going to landfills,” said Shinde.Sharing the experience of the TRF project, he said a dedicated textile collection system was established, sorting and recovery capacity was created and a reliable supply chain of raw materials was built. He said post-consumer textile waste was reprocessed and reused, and added that a dialogue was started with stakeholders in the industry sector for large-scale implementation of the project.Shinde highlighted opportunities under the Maharashtra Textile Policy 2023-2028 and said it would create incentives and support mechanisms for textile recycling and sustainability-based projects. Calling for a collaborative public-private partnership model, he emphasised joint collaboration of local bodies, state govt, the recycling industry, technology providers, industry partners, self-help groups and citizens. He said the textile recovery centre of NMMC could serve as a guide for other cities and should be considered at state and national levels. The TRF Centre, being implemented as a pilot project in the country to recycle textile waste, was being recognised as an innovative project across the country.
