The global textile industry produces about 92 million tonnes of waste each year, equivalent to a full truckload of clothes being sent to landfill or incinerated every second. India generates close to 8 million tonnes of textile waste annually, about 8% of the global total, yet less than 1% is actually recycled into new clothing. In India, roughly 85% of textile waste ends up in landfill. This is another hidden environmental crisis beyond plastic pollution that few people discuss.

Bengaluru startup NoKasa was founded precisely to tackle this problem. Founders Prasad Lingawar and Nachiket Acharya, both graduates of VIT Engineering College in Pune, started the company in Bengaluru in 2024, offering door-to-door old clothes collection services. Lingawar said he had always wanted to do something climate-related, "to do something meaningful for society," and Bengaluru's enormous waste disposal pressure, combined with many residents saying they "don't know how to deal with old clothes," prompted him to enter this track.

According to Lingawar, NoKasa has collected over 50 tonnes of old clothes in its first year, operating with just two vehicles in one city. He estimates that Bengaluru generates more than 300 tonnes of textile waste per month, which shows how big the problem is.

The collected clothes are sorted into A, B, and C grades at the sorting centre. About 20% to 30% of old clothes are still reusable because the owners "outgrew them or they went out of style," classified as Grade A, going through resale channels, which is also the revenue source that keeps the company running; another 30% have stains, damage, or other defects but are still wearable, classified as Grade B for donation; the remaining 30% to 40% are completely unwearable and unsellable, classified as Grade C and entering the upcycling process. Lingawar said the company's upcycling partners shred and break down Grade C old clothes into cotton waste supplied to auto repair shops. "We want nothing to go to landfill, everything to be transformed into something else."

In terms of business model, NoKasa currently does not pay residents cash, but instead gives points tokens redeemable for coupons, offering discounts on platforms like Cleartrip, Zepto, Swiggy, and Starbucks. As a self-reliant startup, it is currently still profitable. Lingawar also admitted the challenges are significant: door-to-door collection requires vehicles and drivers, and with Bengaluru's high fuel prices, sustaining this business on razor-thin margins is not easy.

The biggest technical bottleneck comes from fibre blends. Indian clothing used to be mainly cotton and silk, but today many low-priced fast fashion products on the market are mixed cotton—blended with polyester, viscose, synthetic fibres, and even plastic threads, pushing prices down to 200 to 300 rupees to stimulate purchases. Lingawar explained that once fibres are mixed together, they are extremely difficult to separate, which is the fundamental reason why blended cotton clothing cannot enter the recycling process, and also the biggest problem brought by fast fashion. By comparison, plastic already has relatively mature recycling channels, while clothing is severely lacking. In some European countries, people are already trying to separate plastic fibres from cotton fibres and recycle them separately, but building such a factory costs about $100 million, and the industry is still at a very early stage.

Given India's reality, the most viable path to keep textile waste out of landfill is upcycling. Lingawar listed several local approaches: Goonj in Chennai turns old clothes into quilts and mats; in Chennai, polyester is made into fuel pellets that can replace coal; another startup in Thoothukudi converts polyester into petrol. Overall, cotton-based waste is the only recycling category with significant volume, and it must be single-colour cotton—for example, 10 tonnes of black or white pure cotton can be spun into yarn of the corresponding colour separately. Lingawar pointed out that although India is the largest importer of textile waste, importing large amounts of discarded textiles from China, South Korea, Europe, and the US, most of these imported wastes only flow to resale channels—Panipat, for instance, is a distribution hub; Delhi's Sarojini market is one of India's largest second-hand clothing markets.

According to Lingawar's breakdown, of India's approximately 7.8 million tonnes of textile waste, 42% is pre-consumer waste from production processes like cutting, 51% is post-consumer waste discarded by consumers, and another 7% is imported waste. "Can you persuade people not to overconsume? Very difficult." Lingawar believes that many Indians have extra money in their hands for the first time, and the desire to consume is legitimate. The problem is not with consumers themselves, but that society has not yet established proper disposal channels to make it convenient for old clothes to enter reuse, recycling, or upcycling pathways.

Next, NoKasa plans to expand beyond Bengaluru, through outsourced operations, building cooperation networks with more upcyclers and recyclers, and establishing a national system connecting households with downstream processing enterprises. This company is only Lingawar's second venture—his first SaaS project was acquired years ago. He said that even if he fails to be the exception to the rule that nine out of ten startups fail, at least "pulling 50 tonnes of old clothes out of landfill" gives him peace of mind, which is what he calls "good karma."

Source: 'Nobody Looks At Clothes As Waste' · Originally published on 2026-09-11