A textile reuse initiative in Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka, India, is turning discarded clothing otherwise destined for landfills into practical items such as laptop bags, tote bags, clutches, and scrunchies, while creating income for local rural women.

Called Sooji Mallige, the initiative was launched by Hasiru Dala, an organization engaged in waste collection and sorting, with support from the Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat and SBI Foundation Conserw, covering 10 gram panchayats. According to Nagaraj Ragav Anchan, project manager at Hasiru Dala, one of the original motivations was to reduce dependence on plastic bags and shift toward cloth bags.

In eight months of operation, the initiative has reused nearly 7 tonnes of textile waste, with women involved in the entire process of collecting, processing, and transforming old clothes into products.

Anchan said the organization noticed during waste collection that local residents often discarded clothing still in good condition, prompting them to think about how to make use of it. They began by going door to door to collect idle clothing from households, and also ran recycling drives at colleges. Initially, about 5.5 tonnes of clothing was collected from households; later, another 1.5 tonnes was collected during a "Say No to Plastic" campaign and turned into various bags and items.

Collected clothing is sorted by condition. Expensive saris worn only a few times are given to individual waste pickers in need for personal use; so far about 1,000 saris in good condition have been sent to Davangere for waste pickers. The initiative's recycling network also extends to tailor shops, from which large amounts of discarded fabric are recovered.

Each Sanjeevani Okoota in the 10 gram panchayats sent two women to receive basic sewing and product-making training. They can now make laptop sleeves, clutches, scrunchies, and hairbands from old textiles at home. Hasiru Dala buys finished products from these women and sells them under the Sooji Mallige brand; the products are being used for corporate gift procurement, and institutions and organizations have also placed orders.

Currently about 15 to 20 women are involved in upcycling old clothes, some of whom can earn 15,000 to 20,000 rupees per month through the project. "To cater to Gen Z demand, we are also in talks with designers to help the women develop designs according to their preferences," Anchan said. As demand grows, more women will soon be trained.

Growing awareness of the products has also brought bulk orders; for example, the Lions Club not only placed an order but also donated two sewing machines to support the initiative. For Vidya, a woman in Farangipete, this opened a new source of income. She said she was originally a homemaker and, although she knew how to sew, it was limited to small mending and alterations for family members; after training, she sews laptop bags, tote bags, and clutches at home and earns well.

The initiative also recently had the opportunity to showcase its products at Bharat Tex, a major textile exhibition in New Delhi supported by India's Ministry of Textiles. Three women represented the Sooji Mallige brand at the event, and the products won praise from Union Textiles Minister Giriraj Singh and senior officials.

For the used-clothing trade, this case demonstrates a localized path: linking collection and sorting, skills training, branded sales, and government and corporate resources so that textile waste generates product and employment value locally before entering landfills or cross-border flows.

Source: Discarded clothes find new life, create livelihoods for rural women · Originally published on 2026-09-15