Bangla firms turn to technology to tackle waste

The world’s second biggest exporter of clothes, Bangladesh is looking to technology to gain control of the fashion industry's other major product: textile waste.

- Md. Tahmid Zami, Reuters

Cloud-hosted software allows manufacturers to segregate, label and register waste on a digital platform and track it as it passes between factories, handlers and recyclers. Rizvan Hasan is country lead of Reverse Resources, a company that produces the software. “Reverse Resources is bridging Bangladesh's waste streams with international recycling markets, ensuring that waste handlers benefit from greater business opportunities and fairer prices," he said. Bangladesh currently has the capacity to recycle only between 5% and 7% of its pre-consumer cotton and cotton-elastene waste, said a report last year by the German development agency GIZ and Swedish fashion retailer H&M.