Original article: textiletoday.com.bd
On 28 June 2018, at Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Dhaka, CYCLO Yarn by SIMCO Spinning and Textiles hosted the first ‘Close The Loop’ seminar.
We feel confident when we are dressed well. Eventually, the world is going through a Fashion Revolution. And so we are in the age of fast fashion. For this reason, consumers are using their products for a very short time and then throwing these as waste.
The rise of fast fashion is producing a huge waste to the environment. And lastly, it affects the environment very badly. Only in the UK over one million tons of fabric waste goes to the landfill every year. Then we can assume how much waste is being produced every year worldwide.
To mitigate the challenges major global brands recently have committed to recycling back used garments into new recycled products to reduce the solid waste problem. Due to increasing consumer pressure for sustainable products ‘Circular Fashion’ is getting popular every day. And so the world needs more and more technologies and solution for ‘Circular Fashion’. This story tells how a Bangladeshi company comes forward with a new solution to the problem.
Bangladesh as a major manufacturing country for fast fashion products has been going through environmental risks over the decades. Rising sea level only makes this worse. Garment industries here producing for top fast fashion brands are also creating a lot of solid waste putting enormous pressure on the ground. Cut pieces, left out products or reject products from the brands are creating a pile of solid fabric waste in and around the factories.
Now, this is the perfect time to think and take correct decision for Bangladeshi entrepreneurs also. CYCLO by SIMCO Spinning Mills is such an initiative that comes up with a sustainable solution to the solid waste problem the brands are facing. The waste now could be transformed into treasures.
Mr. Munir expressed his dreams to ensure sustainable supply chain as he is facing problems with the raw material collection. He asked the buyers to come forward and force garments suppliers to provide the cutting leftovers directly to SIMCO as they are working with it very successfully to produce recycled yarn in Bangladesh which is bringing great benefits to economy and ecology.
On 28 June 2018, at Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Dhaka, CYCLO Yarn by SIMCO Spinning & Textiles hosted the first ‘Close The Loop’ seminar where representatives from INDITEX, H&M, Walmart, Carrefour and other leading retailers gathered with representatives from garment manufacturers to focus on the responsible use of the tremendous amount of wastage fabric produced by the industry.
At this seminar, Mustafain Munir, Director of CYCLO by SIMCO Spinning & Textiles shared his experience with the cutting waste recycle technology which he is using in his Spinning mill over the past few Years.
CYCLO collects the raw materials from cutting waste from different garment factories and segregate them color and component-wise. The total procedure is mechanical without any application of chemicals. The CYCLO method eliminates the hazardous dyeing process as the colors of the fabric are maintained throughout the recycling, spinning, and garment making process. This process greatly reduces the use of water, harmful chemicals and dyes, along with reducing CO2 emissions.
Now the company is working with brands and exporting recycled fashion products. The technology can add the necessary amount of polyester with mainly cotton cutting waste to make blended yarns. The company will be using recycled polyester and recycled nylon in future. SIMCO the manufacturing company of CYCLO yarn heavily spends on research and development.
At the presentation, Mustafain Munir asked different fiber manufacturers to come forward to do research works to solve the problems regarding the strength of the recycled yarn. SIMCO Spinning is working very well with the white color cotton yarn and they are very successful for different colored yarn also over the last few years. The process may take a little bit more time than the normal but SIMCO is doing it successfully.
The seminar has informed that SIMCO has been engaged with the export of garments from recycled CYCLO yarn for the last four years to the European market and CYCLO yarn is certified by GRS (Global Recycle standard). Mr. Munir expressed his dreams to ensure sustainable supply chain as he is facing problems with the raw material collection.
He asked the buyers to come forward and force garments suppliers to provide the cutting leftovers directly to SIMCO as they are working with it very successfully to produce recycled yarn in Bangladesh which is bringing great benefits to economy and ecology.
Ann Runnel, CEO of the Estonia based company Reverse Resources introduced her software in the seminar which traces and segregates the cutting waste throughout the manufacturing process and creates an online marketplace.
This software can be one of the best possible solutions of the problems arising with the raw material collection. Traceability is very crucial for the fast fashion brands, the way they will be able to report what percentage of wastage fabric the company is turning into recycled fashion products.
Bangladesh is the second largest apparel exporter in the world producing a huge amount of ‘cutting waste’ at its garment manufacturing factories. These cut pieces of fabric are not used clothes, these are good quality fresh fabric but becoming wastage at the cutting rooms of the garment factories.
These are called ‘Jhuta’ in the local language. This cutting waste is the raw materials for recycling. The total process of producing the yarn is mechanical without using any caustic material. At first, they have to sort out the raw material by component and colorwise. The main target of CYCLO is not only for sustainability but also for business as the cost reduces as there is no dyeing process involved in the total process.
In the seminar, many questions regarding the process came up and Mr. Munir gave answers to them. Some of the guests attending the seminar asked Mr. Munir about the blending accuracy and he assured them that the dedication and expertise of his team is ensuring it successfully. Mr. Abdullah from Carrefour appreciated the initiative of CYCLO and congratulated SIMCO for their effort. He also quarried Mr. Monir that SIMCO Spinning is working with the cutting waste only or waste garments as well. Mr. Munir replied that he is working on the cutting waste only at this moment.
Participants opined that technologies introduced by CYCLO by SIMCO Spinning Ltd. will be very effective to turn the wastage into fashion products. The solution is to put a great impact in the circular fashion gamut in closing the loop commitment of the top fast fashion brands.
SIMCO introduced this promising business idea in Bangladesh for the first time and is the first factory in Bangladesh to contribute in ‘Circular Fashion’ concept of global brands. SIMCO Spinning Ltd. started its business in 2010, running very successfully till today and will go a long way. SIMCO is producing open-end yarn from garment cutting clips are producing yarn of counts ranging from 5/s to 20/s. Their production capacity is 15 tons per day, the company is using one of the best machinery from Europe.
The recycled yarn is produced mainly for knitting and weaving of products like Socks, Gloves, Towels, Home Textiles, Denims, Carpets, Mops, Curtains, Sweaters, T-shirts/Heavy knits/Fleece and Upholstery fabrics. SIMCO remains as the milestone company crafting the way out of the solid waste problem of Bangladesh and the whole world.
