17,480 Suitcases a Day: Hong Kong’s Clothing Waste Crisis Exposes Gaps in Circular Infrastructure

THE CHALLENGES: While many challenges play a part in the waste issue, three major topics were prominently identified:

• Lack of sorting and recycling infrastructure: Hong Kong’s textile recycling infrastructure is currently not robust enough to tackle the extent of the current local clothing waste issue.

This lack of infrastructure is attributed to a few factors:

• land is scarce and expensive in Hong Kong, which is hindering any good return on investment.
• the diversity in quality and product types in Hong Kong requires recycling technology which is still immature
• the business case for setting-up new recycling infrastructure is therefore currently
• the market for locally recycled fibres and yarns is very small. The Billie System, implemented by Novetex is an example: it is one of the rare recycling plants in Hong Kong, and although a break-through for the region in 2019, it is still not running at full capacity — not because of a lack of feedstock but rather a lack of buyers for the recycled fibre output.

Recommendations to brands, designers and manufacturers

• Brands, designers and manufacturers must be held accountable for the products they place on Hong Kong’s market. They have the responsibility to understand the product’s impacts throughout its lifecycle, and especially at the end of its life, when it eventually becomes ‘waste’ for the consumer.
• On building the ecosystem Brands and manufacturers must commit to the implementation of circular fashion and get started and ensure teams receive relevant training. Connecting with their peers from the industry, including recyclers, to build strong partnerships, eventually a coalition, will only support the implementation of local circular practices.
• Investments in infrastructure coming in from brands could perhaps be the last step to a successful Hong Kong local circular fashion economy.
• On design Tackling Hong Kong’s clothing waste issue opens new design opportunities: designers and brands should shift traditional sourcing of virgin textiles to sourcing ‘waste’. Current ‘waste’ feedstocks offer a multitude of avenues to be used, from remanufacturing, to textile waste recycled into fibres.
• Brands and designers have the responsibility to educate their consumers about the product they have designed, facilitating material recovery later on.

Recommendations to recyclers

• Waste collectors and recyclers are the ones who will be able to qualify and sort the ‘waste’ to ensure the highest material recovery solution possible. They also have the opportunity to venture into the remanufacturing and recycling of textile ‘waste’ and become experts at doing so — from revising ways of making garments to operating recycling machinery for quality outputs.
• They should position themselves as equal partners to brands to provide guidance on new ways of manufacturing fashion textile products, and also seek financial support from industry stakeholders, particularly brands.

Recommendations to the government

• Government should ensure that NGOs involved in the scheme of things should be fully transparent and disclose publicly their operations and the volumes they process. This would increase trust from the public (consumers) to use these services to dispose of their clothing responsibly. It would also help the wider industry to understand the scale of post-consumer clothing ‘waste’ and develop solutions accordingly.
• Additionally, the government should also consider asking the same transparency from local brands and manufacturers that today usually dispose of their pre-consumer ‘clothing’ waste in the landfills.
• Brands and manufacturers should be required to disclose publicly their volume of pre-consumer waste, and the methods of disposal.

Policymakers should also consider drafting Hong Kong-adapted regulations similar to what the European Union has recently put in place with their ‘EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles’. In particular, the government should focus on:

• Requiring brands to conceive products following the principles of eco-design
• Incentivising brands to use preferred fibres, with a strong push on the use of recycled fibres coming from pre and post-consumer textile sources
• Taxing the import of clothing made from virgin materials, to encourage the shift toward circular and sustainable alternatives
• Reviewing the export regulations of textiles to other countries to limit the dumping of secondhand goods in other countries which do not have the capacity to manage them properly
• Supporting local businesses that offer services that extend the life of clothing, such as repair services, altering and upcycling businesses, secondhand retailing
• Supporting innovation and adoption in the clothing collection, sorting and recycling sectors.

Strengthening policies on circular practices would push fashion producers to take responsibility for the products they place in the Hong Kong market, and signal to the global fashion industry that Hong Kong is positioning itself as a sustainable and circular fashion hub.

TEAM: Writing: Morgane Parizot, Looped Editing: Hannah Lane, Aurianne Riquier, Redress.

ABOUT: Redress is a Hong Kong-based, Asia-focused environmental NGO with a mission to accelerate the transition to a circular fashion industry by educating and empowering designers and consumers in order to reduce clothing’s negative environmental impacts.

WHAT THEY SAID

Based on the current daily waste intake, it is projected that both landfills will be exhausted in 2026.

— Tse Chin-wan
Secretary, Environment and Ecology
Hong Kong