Hong Kong can now address its textile waste problem, thanks to the new spinning mill in the country. The factory is about to start to recycle yarn from old and useless clothes in autumn, and it now has its first client.
Originally owned by the local textiles firm Novetex, Taipo Eco-friendly Cotton Mill is a 19,000-square-feet plant and the first recycling mill in Hong Kong after almost half a century, per the South China Morning Post.
The spinning mill can generate three tons of recycled fiber from almost the same amount of textile waste every day when it becomes fully operative. Its cost reduction is about 30 percent because of the newly employed techniques, and it cannot affect the fabric's quality.
However, the said amount is just a small part of the average 340 tons of textile waste Hongkonger produce daily. But Taipo Eco-friendly Cotton Mill is optimistic it can increase its capacity to upcycle even a third of the daily textile waste or about 10 tons per day in the future.
Hong Kong Research Institute for Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA) developed the Taipo Eco-friendly Cotton Mill. The government-funded institution's chief executive Edwin Keh Yee-man revealed this move could put Hong Kong's textile industry back into the business. It can also help boost the "made in Hong Kong" mark. Environment wise, it can reduce the pressure on the city's landfills.
"We could have opened [this mill] in China, 10 times its current size, but we decided to do it in Hong Kong to prove two things," Keh said. "We can solve our local textile waste problem locally and that in such a small, compact city, sustainable [textile recycling] is feasible."
According to Yicai Global, Taipo Eco-friendly Cotton Mill is in Tai Po Industrial Estate. It will continue HKRITA's textile recycling techniques by setting up three production lines based on the reuse of polyester-cotton.
The first production line is to sanitize the textiles mechanically. Then it will be sorted and processed back into yarn and will be shipped as a raw material to mainland China. Lastly, the raw material can turn into new fabrics and garments.
The spinning mill now has its first client, the Swedish fashion chain H&M. The company orders hundreds of clothes that it will receive in November. Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam described the return of the cotton mills to the country as a move toward its "re-industrialization."
