Where to begin when seeing mountains of waste being dumped everyday? 

In BESTSELLER Foundation we see a need to tackle the textile waste problem deriving from second-hand trading through an integrated approach of collection, sorting and recycling. This can only happen by creating a value from otherwise dumped or burned resources and making it an asset for a circular economy, but this will not happen tomorrow. 

Therefore, we have partnered with Mr. Green Africa in a new pilot project expanding from November 2024 to April 2025. The pilot project will be managed by Mr. Green Africa’s innovation team and benefit from their existing infrastructure within waste management of plastic waste. 

During the project, Mr. Green Africa will source textile waste from different sources in Nairobi and utilise their existing network of waste pickers. The waste will be sorted in different fractions to provide better insights of the quality and fiber compositions of the collected garments. For this process we have partnered with UK-based Matoha in providing a fabric scanner with NIR technology for the sorting team to easier identify cotton, polyester, nylon etc.

With our findings it will be possible to asses which recycling methods are most prone to work for the available textile waste from the local markets and household.