Someone Else’s Clothes, Someone Else’s Crisis

Hyderabad: Known as the “cast-off capital of the world”, India’s textile recycling capital Panipat has become one of the largest destinations for discarded clothing from the global north, namely Europe, North America, Japan and other major consumer markets. It is precisely in the numerous warehouses of this city, where old, cast-off garments are sorted, shredded and then re-spun into yarn and transformed further into rugs, blankets and other textile products that are then exported globally. What is often celebrated as a model of circular fashion is now increasingly drawing scrutiny for the environmental and human costs hidden beneath the heaps of color-coded clothes that crowd the recycling facilities of the city.

According to the reports by The Guardian, Panipat processes more than a million tonnes of textile waste annually, through roughly 20,000 recycling units and provides employment to an estimated 3,00,000 workers. Much of the material originates from countries that consume and discard clothing at unprecedented rates. Consumers in London, New York or Paris can dispose of unwanted clothing with little to no thought about where it ends up. Unfortunately, the environmental consequences doesn’t disappear, it just gets relocated.

Health Issues Among Workers Handling Textile Waste

Unlike the polished sustainability campaigns promoted by global fashion brands, the reality on the ground is starkly different. Workers handling discarded garments are often exposed to dense clouds of textile dust, shredded synthetic fibres and chemical residues generated during the process of sorting and recycling processes. The Guardian documented workers reporting chronic breathing problems, persistent coughs, and respiratory illnesses after years of working, bared to the airborne microfibers inside poorly ventilated facilities. Families residing near these industrial facilities also reported of similar concerns. For many residents, though, the economic opportunities created by recycling are inseparable from the health risks that accompany it.

The health risk actually goes well beyond the factory premises. CNN’s investigations, cited by industry experts and environmental organizations, have highlighted how workers in these spaces handle dust, fibres and chemical substances with limited to negligible protective equipments, while untreated waste water from the recycling processes of dyeing and bleaching flowed through open drains, risking the contamination of the surrounding soil and water systems.

Much of the fast-fashion clothing arriving in recycling hubs like Panipat contains polyester and synthetic blends, which when goes through the recycling processes generate microplastics. Scientists worldwide are investigating how detrimental microplastics can be with prolonged exposure, and Panipat sits directly at the centre of this emerging concern.

India Refutes CNN Reports Calling it “Misleading”

Following CNN’s reporting on Panipat in May 2026, India’s Ministry of Textiles pushed back strongly, calling the coverage a misleading portrayal of India’s textile recycling sector, by stating that over 90 percent of the nearly 7.8 million tonnes of textile waste managed annually originates domestically. According to the Ministry, imported textile waste is regulated under the Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016, and mainly consists of used clothing items and mutilated rags. They further cited a report by the FICCI, which estimated that India’s textile waste ecosystem generates economic value of around rupees 22,000 crore annually. The ministry noted that textile recycling reduces emissions than virgin fibre production, and highlighted investments in cleaner technologies, while acknowledging the ongoing challenges involving worker safety, and compliance among smaller informal units.

But the response reflects a larger tension that now shapes the global fashion debate. While recycling undeniably prevents huge quantities of clothing from directly heading to the landfills, it also exposes the dark side of the industry. The presence of recycling centres in countries like India is like they are increasingly being asked to absorb a problem created elsewhere. This is the essence of waste colonialism.

Waste Colonialism In Action

We saw the same dynamic in Kantamanto, Ghana, long before it created headlines for the 2025 fire. The world’s largest secondhand clothing market, the Kantamanto market receives roughly 15 million garments every week, many originating from fast-fashion supply chains in Europe and North America. Traders have repeatedly warned that growing volumes of clothing arrive damaged, unsellable or of such poor quality that they become waste immediately. The profits generated by fast fashion remain concentrated in wealthy consumer markets and multinational corporations. The pollution, waste management costs and health consequences, meanwhile, are disproportionately borne by communities thousands of kilometers away.

Although both geographical locations occupy very different positions in this chain, but both are being burdened by the same structural imbalance, both are being asked to absorb the overwhelming consequences of overconsumption. As discarded clothes keep arriving, and the dust keeps rising, the question is no longer whether fast fashion creates waste. The question is why the world continues exporting waste, and it's associated health and environmental costs, to communities that never benefitted from the consumption that created it.

For years, the fashion industry framed recycling as the solution, but cities like Panipat actually expose the evidence of a deeper crisis, a global system producing far more clothing than what the world can safely absorb, reuse or recycle.

(This article is written by Rocheta Chakraborty, a student of The English and Foreign Languages University, currently interning at Deccan Chronicle).