Uşak is becoming the center of recycling of textile wastes while expanding its domestic and international export area.
Uşak is becoming the center of recycling of textile wastes while expanding its domestic and international export area. Usak, which has a wide market especially in European countries, 85 percent meet the needs of the textile recycling in Turkey. On the other hand, thousands of people are being employed, especially women’s employment in the expanding business area in the region.
The region, which has hundreds of companies in the field of tekstil textile waste recycling du where the biggest contribution is made to the city economy, is expanding its domestic and foreign markets gradually. Known for their large investments made on recycling Usak, 85 percent of the need for recycling textiles in Turkey to meet the country’s economy makes a major contribution. Polat İplik Board Member Mustafa Polat, who recycled garment wastes, stated that the importance given to recycling has increased and that they expanded their markets and said that the city is the leader in this field.
“There is clustering on recycling in Uşak”
Polat stated that the focus on recycling is the textile area and said, “Clipping wastes that are generated in garment companies are collected in our company. We collect clippings from Denizli, İzmir, İstanbul and some foreign countries here. We separate them according to their color and content and make them into fibers and then convert them into yarns. From these yarns, all the textile products you can think of as the final product clothes, carpets, towels are produced. In this way, something that is waste becomes a product again. Recycling is carried out in 5-6 provinces in Turkey.
Innovative development support from Uşak University
The company, which established a protocol with Uşak University, emphasized the importance of university-industry cooperation and said, “With Uşak University, we are working on Research and Development (R & D) innovation projects. What can we do innovatively with products produced from recycling? We have yarn and blanket production. In the past years, our exports to blankets were mostly with countries such as Libya, Iraq, which are less developed countries. They are still continuing, but we followed a policy to increase our export area in yarn. This year we increased our yarn exports more. We have exports from South America to Europe, North Africa, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and many other countries.”
“Ecologically valuable but low brand value”
Underlining that Uşak is an important region, Textile Engineer and Provincial Representative of Public-University-Industry, Lecturer Member Eren Öner, “85 percent of textile waste is recycled in Turkey in Uşak. There are many different recycling sectors here, but the textile comes to the fore a little more. The clippings of the garments produced in Istanbul and İzmir are recycled here. There is a natural cluster as well as specialization. Although their hardship to date has been an ecologically valuable business, such as recycling, its brand-quality value was low. Since 2016, Uşak University has become a regional specialization university in the fields of Leather, Textile and Ceramics (DTS). From this moment on, “How can added value be provided to recycling products, Functional features, how to make innovative developments?” steps were taken. There are currently 5 major projects in operation. Our DTS Research Center also has an incentive. However, our greatest hope is to provide more added value to these products through ongoing projects and to be known all over the world.”