Textile Waste in Emerging Economies: Management and Governance Towards a Circular System
“Textile Waste in Emerging Economies: Management and Governance Towards a Circular System” is the research project of Anwesha Borthakur's Humboldt Fellowship, starting in April 2024 and running until November 2025.
The project focuses on textile waste governance in the Global South in general, and in emerging economies in particular. Textile waste is still a relatively invisible, ignored, and understudied stream of waste in the Global South. It is characterized by its inherent toxicity (e.g. dyes) and management challenges that can have detrimental human health and environmental consequences and thus require urgent research and policy attentions. In the project, Anwesha examines textile waste management approaches in India and South Africa as representatives of emerging economies, reflecting on all three phases of the textile lifecycle—from its production to the consumption to the final disposal. The aim is to develop an analytical framework for textile waste management approaches in emerging economies with a special focus on a circular system.