Benjamin Joseph Malka, Executive Chairman of Recover, met with BGMEA Faruque Hassan at BGMEA office in Dhaka on November 30.

Alejandro Raña, Chief Business Development Office at Recover, was also present at the meeting.

Recover is a global producer of low-impact, high-quality recycled cotton fibre and fibre blends.

They had discussions about possible collaboration between BGMEA and Recover to enhance the capacity of recycling textile waste in Bangladesh to make the country a global hub of recycling.

They expressed high optimism about developing recycling industry in Bangladesh as 75 percent of apparel products are cotton-based and nearly 400,000 tons of recyclable pre-consumer waste is produced in Bangladesh every year, of which only 5 percent is locally recycled.

“Hence, we see a huge prospect in developing recycling industry in Bangladesh. By capturing and reusing textile waste, we can reduce our cotton import and export clothing, made of the recycled fibres, worth around USD 3 billion,” Faruque Hassan said.

Bangladesh’s RMG industry has turned its focus on shift from the linear economic model to circular as a circular fashion system could bring not only environmental but financial benefits for Bangladesh, he added.

BGMEA has already entered into partnership with Global Fashion Agenda (GFA), Reverse Resources, and P4G in an initiative "Circular Fashion Partnership" that aims to achieve a long-term, scalable transition to a circular fashion system.

Ben Malka said Recover had already made huge investment in the recycling industry of Bangladesh and was keen to invest more to develop the recycling capacity in the country.