About 7800 kilo tonnes of #textilewaste is accumulated annually in India. 42% of which is pre consumer waste. This is 8.5% of the global pie.
Then there’s the massive amount of land use, water use, chemical use, biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated to produce this.
Now let’s talk about the #toy industry.
Plastic makes up 90% of the toy industry, making it the most plastic intensive of any. Nearly 80% of all toys end up in landfills, incinerators or the ocean and account for almost 6% of landfill plastics. The average life span of these toys being 6 months.
Most plastic toys are made from mixed materials, such as PVC, ABS, or polycarbonate, which make it challenging to recycle them efficiently.
Meanwhile, annual plastic production is expected to reach more than 56 gigatons (billion metric tons) by 2050 and account for as much as 13% of total global emissions by that time.
Each year, 60 million #Barbie dolls are sold, contributing emissions equivalent to burning 381 million gallons of gasoline.
Currently, China hosts over 70% of total toy production for the world. So add the logistics pressure to the already unfavourable tilt of scale.
How cool would it be to take waste from the textile industry and use that as an input material for the toy industry?!
It’s not easy off-course but not impossible. And, it could potentially double down the damage.
Just in the past 7-8 months, a small business like ours, has been able to save about 5000 kgs of pre consumer textile waste from going into landfills by #upcycling them into these fabric dolls. This also meant that we avoided 4000 kgs of plastic from being bought and subsequently being sent to landfill.
So massive opportunity for both these industries.
PS: For some reason, I a not able to upload a video here… but check out a short video of the #wastetovalue process here.
