Mobile stand made of a t-shirt: Innovation from Tirupur

The theme was, “Decoding Circularity Together”. The speakers during the inauguration: Alli, director of SVPITM, Tushar Jani of CEE and Prakash Vsudevan of SITRA, set the stage for the two-day event. There were 25 participants from the sustainable divisions of various textile industries.

Being an adjunct faculty who handles courses on sustainability at SVPITM, I had the opportunity of engaging the participants for the first session on “linear economy to circularity - an introduction”. It was an interactive session inundated with intriguing debates on various perspectives of the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘circularity’.

We also conducted hands-on activities for the participants where-in they had to identify the enablers and barriers for transforming a product / process into a circular one. It was heartening to see the zeal with which the participants presented their action plan during these activities.

Among the various best practices shared by the Industry speakers, the one by Sakthivel, MD, Purnarbhavaa Sustainable Products, Tirupur, was appealing.

He distributed a two-piece paper board mobile stand, which read “I was a t-shirt last month, Now I hold your mobile”. He then described how his company closes the loop on fast fashion. They procure textile waste from apparel companies, make paper pulp from these cut fabrics and convert them into paper boards and sheets for clothing labels, tags, textile cartons, boxes, cloth hangers and other items. They have installed a five-colour Heidelberg press with coater for their printing solutions.