‘Every day, someone loses a hand or a leg’: the brutal reality of India’s textile recycling industry

The Guardian · Guardian staff reporter · 2026-11-06 07:00 UTC

In Panipat, 1m tons of used clothing a year are turned into products for global brands, but dangerous machinery and few safeguards mean life-changing injuries are common

For three months, Suraj Kumar’s job was to feed discarded clothes into shredding machines in Panipat, an industrial city in the north Indian state of Haryana. Clothes discarded in the US, Canada and Europe arrive in the city to be torn back into fibres and spun into yarn, feeding a textile recycling industry that supplies markets across the world.

Suraj, 19, had travelled from West Bengal state to work in Panipat’s factories, following his cousins and friends who had already found jobs there. He hoped to earn enough to send money home to his parents. But in late August, an electrical short circuit in the machine propelled him into the shredding mechanism. The accident crushed both arms.

“I wish I had died rather than lost both my arms,” Suraj says. An only child, he had hoped his job in Panipat would support his parents. Instead, he fears he has become a financial burden on them. The work he had taken up to help his family has left him dependent on others, with no certainty about what his future will look like.

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