Closing the Loop: turning textile waste into opportunity in India

Once the fabric is sorted based on material, they get baged and stored for another round of sorting, based on colour.

The Closing the Loop programme, supported by the H&M Foundation, the IKEA Foundation and Alwaleed Philanthropies, is part of our Saamuhika Shakti initiative, a broader effort aiming to enable inclusive circularity and a just transition for waste workers in Bengaluru. 

So far, the Closing the Loop programme has diverted more than 4,000 metric tonnes of textile waste from landfills, improved 3,000 lives through capacity building and income opportunities, supported nearly 50 waste micro-entrepreneurs and the creation of 4 ventures. Operating across 11 Indian cities, CAIF has established an ecosystem that enables early textile recovery, sorting and repurposing, while Enviu’s ventures are pioneering new circular business models that reclaim value from waste.

With waste pickers at the centre

 The initiative starts where few others do: with those who collect and sort waste by hand. In Bengaluru, Indumathi, once an informal waste picker, now runs a textile recovery facility as an entrepreneur, leading change within her community. In Kerala, women’s self-help groups carry out door-to-door and institutional collection, ensuring that textiles are captured before they reach landfills. 

At the recovery facilities, discarded materials are carefully sorted by colour, fibre and condition. Clothes in good shape are resold through thrift stores, cotton-rich fabrics are recycled into yarns or upcycled into new products and polyester-heavy discards are transformed by The Good Felt, a venture that turns shredded polyester into durable felt sheets used in industries from automotive to fashion. 

Through Saamuhika Shakti, we’ve seen how collaboration can drive real change for both people and planet. Closing the Loop shows that when waste workers are recognised as key partners in circular systems, innovation thrives, livelihoods improve, and waste truly becomes a resource.

Maria Bystedt, Programme Director at H&M Foundation.

By bringing together philanthropy, industry and community-driven innovation, Closing the Loop demonstrates how circular systems can scale while ensuring that those at the base of the value chain share in the benefits. As part of the Saamuhika Shakti initiative, this work continues to influence how India and the global textile industry thinks about waste, work and worth.