Sustainability

Landmark Group opens textile recycling unit

December 10, 2024, 5:49 PM

Renuka Jagtiani, chairperson, Landmark Group, at the launch of the textile recycling facility in Dubai

2,000-tonne textile recycling plant
Mena recycles only 5% of waste
Shoppers can deposit in store

Retailer Landmark Group has opened a textile recycling facility at Dubai World Central that will convert clothes into fibre for new garments.

The Dubai company launched a takeback programme last year at its Centrepoint and Max Fashion stores, and more recently at Home Centre and Home Box stores.

Clothes are brought to the recycling centre where they are processed into a selection of fibres for manufacturing units to be spun into yarn. Eventually these will be transformed into new clothing or home furnishings products.

The UAE said in December last year that it was considering introducing a tax on packaging to fund recycling.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in 2022 that the amount of mismanaged or uncollected litter in the Mena region is 40 percent. 54 percent of waste is sent to landfill, 1 percent incinerated and just 5 percent recycled.

Landmark said its facility, Landmark Circulife, is the first of its kind in the Gulf region.

The centre has an initial capacity to process 2,000 metric tonnes of textile waste a year, with plans to expand it to more than five times that volume – equivalent to 5 percent of the UAE apparel market.

Renuka Jagtiani, chairperson at Landmark Group, said: “We have introduced several initiatives across various stages of our products’ lifecycles and operations to reduce our environmental impact and drive greater circularity.”

Last month Landmark Group announced plans to invest $1 billion over three years to open 400 new stores in GCC, India and Southeast Asia. It also plans to invest in ecommerce, supply chain and technology to build on its current annual revenue of more than $7 billion.