Innovation

Usha yarns, a sustainable textile company uses pre-consumer garment cutting waste and polyester made from recycled PET bottles and produce a quality recycled pre-dyed yarn. The yarn being pre-dyed, saves a significant amount of water, thus making it sustainable yet again. Their primary goal is to make a sustainable product with a significantly reduced environmental footprint at a lower cost.

In 2020, 9720MT garment waste,6480MT PET waste was recycled to produce a quality recycled pre-dyed yarn, it eventually saved 34992000KL water and emitted 44712MT less Co2

The core function of Usha Yarns could relate to many SDG’s one of them is Responsible consumption and production which respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life while minimizing the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as the emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product which is observed from the 2020 statistics.

Other SDG’s goes hand in hand such as Climate action, the company is at the forefront by reducing the CO2 emission and restricting the usage of hazardous chemicals in the production process.

Good health and well-being is also been promoted at the work place by promoting safer health environment, exclusion of child labour, smoking, sexual abuse and harassment. It also focuses on empowering women , bolstering primary education and employment of youth in communities. Many health care drives which emphasizes on Health Awareness, conducts Yoga, Meditation and Fitness Camps, with Emergency Services to keep their employees healthy.

References: https://www.ushayarns.com/

Inspiration

The business founder was inspired by the Steve Labonte’s words; “Recycling is a concern both human and divine” which means that everything on Earth is connected. Whether it is water, air, soil, nutrients, minerals, gases, or microorganisms, nature has been recycling everything in a precise ecological balance that has been occurring for all of our planet’s history. These processes ensure that all of life on Earth is sustained and humanity has an important role to play in being the caretaker of our planet.

Set up in the years 1997, Usha Yarns began with a goal of manufacturing of cotton yarn by recycling waste and creating a closed loop industrial system as a key component to contribute towards having a sustainable world and a sustainable business. The business was earlier making yarns which were used to make coarser fabrics.

The textile and fashion industry has a huge environmental footprint and at Usha Yarns the founder believed that what is good for the planet is also good for business and therefore started making a sustainable product which helped them to significantly reduced environmental footprint at a lower cost. As the consumer demand for sustainable textiles was increasing, fashion brands wanted to have a competitive advantage by choosing more recycled content in their garments to help the environment and improve their bottom line and by using pre-consumer garment cutting waste and polyester made from recycled PET bottles, it helped Usha Yarn to produce a quality recycled pre dyed yarn at a lower cost.

References: https://www.ushayarns.com/

Overall impact

The innovation of producing recycled yarns had a significant impact as the company recycled 16200 MT of yarn in more than 100 colors in the year 2020. It also used 9720 MT of garment waste and 6480 MT of Pet waste to produce a quality recycled pre-dyed yarn with a significantly reduced environmental footprint at a lower cost. The company was also able to save 3,49,92,000 KL of water and 1,45,800 Kg of Chemical during the whole process. It also contributed in 44,712 MT of less CO2 emission thus helping in controlling pollution to a large extent.

Usha yarns short term goals is to form partnerships with leading retail, fashion, lifestyle, and garment brands to achieve zero waste through the process of recycling garment and fabric waste into useful products.

The long-term goal of Usha yarn is to increase the availability of apparel, garments, and home furnishings through sustainable production processes that will help in lowering the ecological footprint in the marketplace, and also give an appeal to the growing number of consumers worldwide who are now demanding more ecologically-friendly products.

The company has high standards of quality control and ensure consistent global standards of high quality. This can be verified as the company has been certified by Indian Green Building Council for achieving the green building standards, First Quality certification, Global Recycle standards and Organic Content Standard.

References: https://www.ushayarns.com/

Business benefit

The textile and fashion industry has a huge environmental footprint. Usha Yarn has been trying to make a social and environmental impact to overcome exactly that by its innovation i.e, using recycled pre dryed yarn to make its products.

Committed to circular economic practices and sustainable growth, the firm has contributed immensely to the environment and the community around itself.

Employee welfare is at the core of their strategy. They organise regular health check-ups and medical insurance for its employees and have several activities such as Health Seminars, Awareness Workshops, Yoga, Meditation and Fitness Camps, with Emergency Services to keep our employees’ health in great condition. They promote and protect their employees by a wide range of initiatives such as conducting monthly training on health care, hygiene, and safety first, following strict policies and also safety measures on our equipment. Strict policies on the exclusion of child labour, smoking, sexual abuse and harassment are followed at the workplace.

They believe that Happy Employees are Best Employees. This in turn has increased employee retention by 25 %. Along with this, their production capacity has Commissioned Usha Yarns Unit 3 with a capacity of 400 MT per month, taking total installed capacity to 1000 MT per month with 100+ colour shades made only for garment use.

They have also been able to tap new markets with their innovation, offering products like recycled knitting, weaving yarn, cotton melange, denim and blended speciality yarn.

References: https://www.ushayarns.com/

Social and environmental benefit

Usha Yarns targets on reducing their dependencies on conventional energy sources by aiming to reduce water consumption in their dry processes and also to save major amounts of energy annually. They are committed to follow IGBC guidelines for building green infrastructure to reduce artificial lights and air conditioning systems, strict machine cleaning and maintenance schedules to avoid break downs and energy losses. The chemicals involved in different textile process can lead to allergic reactions, respiratory diseases, and increased potential of cancer for humans. Usha Yarns has a strict policy to not use any hazardous chemicals in their production process.

They also adopt recycled fiber, post and pre-consumer waste as primary raw material source instead of cotton which utilises 2.5% of the world’s arable land and accounts for 16% of all pesticides used and aim to produce high outputs without compromising their policy to use only recyclable waste inputs like garment cutting and PET waste with a goal to close the textile loop and achieve zero discharge, zero waste.

Reduce CO2 emissions by replacing traditional dyeing with dry dyeing strategy, Usha yarns is able to cut down CO2 emissions to its minimum by continuous measurement of the air, noise and stack emissions to mark and follow the environmental safety norms, they have set a vision to build a healthy environment around our production to create a comfortable and eco-friendly work culture for the employees.

References: https://www.ushayarns.com/

Interview

Kanav Kansal, Marketing Manager