What can you do with your old clothes? How new recycling plant aims to address Hong Kong’s 340 tonnes of daily textile waste
New spinning mill – the first in almost half a century in city – will start churning out recycled yarn spun out of old, discarded clothes beginning this autumn
Hong Kong may never reclaim its mantle as a textiles manufacturing powerhouse, but new developments suggest it has not shed all of its post-war industrial legacy either.
A new spinning mill – the first in almost half a century to be built in the former garment-making hub – will start churning out recycled yarn spun out of old, discarded clothes beginning this autumn.
The 19,000 sq ft Tai Po facility, owned by local textiles firm Novetex, is also the city’s first textile “upcycling” mill and when fully equipped, will be able to spin three tonnes of recycled fibre from roughly the same amount of textile waste daily, without affecting cost or quality.
It is a small fraction of the 340 tonnes of textile waste discarded by Hongkongers every day, but the company believes it is “possible in theory” to expand capacity to handle about a third of that figure in the future, reducing pressure on the city’s landfills.
Edwin Keh Yee-man, chief executive of the publicly funded Hong Kong Research Institute for Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA), which developed the plant’s recycling system, said the move would put the city’s textiles industry back on the map and boost the “made in Hong Kong” mark.