Since 2018, Kloth Cares has placed more than 500 bins across Malaysia and Singapore, including 77 in Johor.
SINCE fabric recycling bins were introduced to Johor four years ago, over 800.9 tonnes of unwanted clothing and textiles have been saved from going to landfills.
Fabric recycling movement Kloth Circularity co-founder Sarahah Kedah said, “This is equivalent to almost 5,000,000 T-shirts diverted from incinerators and landfills, more than 32,000 medium-sized suitcases full of textiles and nearly 2,000,000kg of greenhouse gas emissions prevented.
“Last year, the Kloth Cares recycling bins collected a whopping 313.2 tonnes of unwanted fabric, which was significantly higher compared with 207.3 tonnes collected in 2022,” she told StarMetro.
This year, as of July, Kloth Cares collected 197.6 tonnes of unwanted textiles and clothing via 77 bins placed around Johor.
The bin with the highest collection volume was at Sutera Mall, where over 200 tonnes of fabric were collected from April 2021 until last July.
This was followed by the one at Sunway Citrine hub with over 41 tonnes and another at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Skudai with over 30 tonnes collected.
Kloth Circularity co-founders Sarahah (left) and Nik Suzila Nik Hassan.
According to Sarahah, bins with high volumes were emptied by her team two to three times a week while collection for others was done once a week or fortnightly.
Since 2018, Kloth Cares had placed over 500 bins across Malaysia and Singapore, where more than 9,000,000kg of unwanted fabric had been collected, she said.
In order to reduce waste and environmental impact, the public is encouraged to practise the 5R principles of rethink, reduce, reuse, repurpose and recycle, when shopping for clothes.
“Take a moment to reflect if you really need it. Do you already have something similar at home and will the item add to your quality of life?
“Reduce – buy only what you need to make sure these resources do not go to waste,” she said.
Sarahah said repurposing or upcycling clothes into something new such as bags or pouches was another way to go.
“Recycling should only be the last resort as all materials can only be recycled a minimal amount of times before they break down,” she said.
According to her, 10% of donated new and reusable materials were redistributed to its upcycling brand Kloth Woman Up, which produces premium merchandise and gifts made from unwanted fabrics and sewn by underprivileged women to create job opportunities and provide wages.
Some of the upcycled products include face masks crafted using surplus staff uniforms, aprons made from recycled plastic bottle fabrics, turning branded corporate garments into notebook sleeves, and also stitching toys from unwanted fabrics.
“We also distribute the clothes to charities in crisis situations, natural disasters and flood relief when we receive requests for assistance.
“The remaining 90% of the donated materials is processed responsibly by our textile-recycling operators according to grade A for items in good to wearable conditions or grade B for items in moderate to unwearable conditions,” she said.
Grade A items would be exported to developing countries through the global textiles and clothing recycling market as well as being sold locally.
For grade B items, fibre reclamation would be done to make low-grade blankets, used as insulation fillings or blended with other fibres before exported overseas.
They would also be cut into industrial cleaning cloths and converted to energy as processed engineered fuel.
Sarahah said all sorts of clothing, including underwear were accepted, provided they were not wet or soiled.
However, the organisation does not accept mattresses, fabric remnants less than 1m in length, glass, metal, paper, plastic, furniture or electrical appliances.
For details, visit Kloth Cares’ website.
