Shaoxing city in eastern China’s Zhejiang province is all set to become the country’s largest textile waste recycling base. Two companies have joined hands for a project aimed at environment protection. These are : Zhejiang Jiaren New Materials and Zhejiang Lvyu Environment Protection. They have announced their support to building the country’s largest textile waste recycling base.

As a result of this project, after two years, China’s textile waste recycling capacity will increase 6,00,000 tons per year or one-third of China’s total textile waste. At present, only about 10 per cent of textile waste is reused in China.

Zhejiang Jiaren New Materials uses eco-circle technology, a chemical method to manufacture recycled polyester fibers. Zhejiang Lvyu Environmental Protection uses technology and process similar to eco-circle to turn textile waste into polyester chips. These chips will be mainly sold to domestic textile mills for producing polyester filaments or staple.

The project costs five billion yuan. The first phase project, with an investment of one billion yuan, broke ground in March this year. Over the next five years, this project will become the largest base for regenerated resources in China.

Textile waste is a material that is deemed unusable for its original purpose by the owner. Textile waste can include fashion and textile industry waste, created during fiber, textile and clothing production, and consumer waste, created during consumer use and disposal.