GOING CIRCULAR

Sustainability Compendium V
An F2F Initiative

Usha Yarns Limited

Usha Yarns has a legacy of more than two decades in learning, developing and producing recycled textiles. Today, the company has three recycled spinning plants in operation spread across 20 acres within the proximity of Chandigarh. The plants are modern and equipped with the best recycling technology driven by spinning brands like Rieter, Truetzschler, Oerlikon and Schlafhorst.

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From the CEO’s Desk

Anurag Gupta

Chief Executive Officer


Sustainability is at the core of our business and it goes beyond offering green products. It is our resolve to meaningfully contribute to the global effort by reducing the carbon footprint of textiles, using less natural resources, consuming textile waste and completing the loop in the textile value chain. We transform post-industrial textile waste into quality yarn, suitable for making garments which are more sustainable. We are committed to produce and promote pure recycled textiles, to support the rising demand of eco-friendly materials—from sustainable brands—across the globe. We aim to challenge and overcome the limitations of recycled textiles, continuing our step by step achievements in terms of bigger lot sizes, largest colour range, more blends and quality consistency.

 

About

Company Background

Usha Yarns has a legacy of more than two decades in learning, developing and producing recycled textiles. Today, the company has three recycled spinning plants in operation spread across 20 acres within the proximity of Chandigarh. The plants are modern and equipped with the best recycling technology driven by equipment brands like Rieter, Truetzschler, Oerlikon and Schlafhorst.

The company has a monthly capacity to produce more than 1,000 tonnes of regenerated yarns in different solid and mélange colours, certified by Global Recycling Standards (GRS). The products are thoroughly examined on each quality parameter of global standards to ensure the complete satisfaction of customers. The company is an emerging brand in circular textiles, known for offering unique values like 100 per cent recycled content, big lot sizes, no colour variations and fine quality for both hosiery and woven applications which sets it apart from competitors.

 

Policy

Sustainability Policy


Sustainability is at the core of the business and it goes beyond offering a green product. To create sustainable values for customers, the company provides recycled yarn while closing the textile loop. The company senses an emergency on the climate crisis and responds to it by reducing its dependency on fossil fuels, chemicals, water, energy and emissions.

The company is committed to acting more responsibly as the textiles value chain was always questionable for polluting the environment and presenting a threat to ecosystems. “We take holistic approach by adopting green alternatives which are zero discharge, closed loop and renewables to stabilize toxic environment. Our sustainability initiatives are derived from following key values:

  • Reducing our dependency on precious natural resources like land and fresh water;
  • Count our carbon footprint as we look back to our emission which generates tonnes of toxic fumes and polluting our breathable air;
  • Stop harmful chemicals like fertilisers, pesticides and dyes which are getting into land and water streams only to return to human bodies through the water and food chains;
  • Close the textiles loop by recycling garment waste turned into regenerated fibres and then yarn which have almost similar utilities to replace virgin textiles.

 

Initiatives

Sustainability Initiatives

The sustainability goals of the company are driven by three main principles—product, environment and social—which cover various aspects as described below.

 

products

Responsible products

has become a major source of pollution in the fashion and textiles industry, utilizing 2.5 per cent of the world’s arable land and accounting for 16 per cent of all pesticides used. “We have recycled the cotton textile and have put recycling yarn technologies at the heart of our strategy. We are re-evaluating waste and using it as our primary material source.” Usha Yarns replaced virgin cotton, by recycling cutting waste from the industry, and second, by using fibre made from recycling PET bottles. The 100 per cent recycling process ultimately supports and enables more sustainable textile circulation for the fashion and textile industry.

 

 

Environment

Environment


  • Water: Usha Yarns actively takes responsibility for saving water with several initiatives. “We integrated a dry dyeing process, where no water process and no chemicals are utilised. This ground-breaking process allows us to save up to 86.182.600 kilo litres of water every month. Apart from this we have equally invested into water management systems such as: tap water regulators that avoid water wastage, rainwater harvesting systems to restore waterfall during the monsoon, and an STP unit to recycle and reuse the wastewater.
  • Energy: Continued efforts for energy reduction are at the forefront of Usha Yarns targets. The dry processes in making dyed yarns not only reduce water consumption, but also allow to save energy. “Our mill infrastructure is a green building certified by IGBC India and provisions to reducing air conditioning systems and modular lights permit us to reduce energy consumption. Our regular machine maintenance and up gradation play vital role to reduce energy consumption efficiently.” Usha Yarns aims to shift step by step to renewable energy sources, starting with solar energy.
  • Chemicals: The textiles industry today still uses high amounts of chemicals including substances of concern. Chemicals are utilised at various stages in production including fibre production, dyeing, treating and finishing processes. Usha Yarns uses no chemical that have impact on human health and on the environment. Employees are properly informed and trained to handle a secured application of the substances during the production process.
  • Emissions: “We successfully managed to reduce radically CO2 emissions by eliminating numerous steps in our supply chain. By replacing traditional dyeing with our dry dyeing technique and the use of pre-coloured yarns, we have been able to cut down CO2 emissions to a minimum.” The company has continuously tried to ensure the norms for air, noise and stack emissions. “More than that, we have set a standard for creating a comfortable and eco-friendly environment by encouraging green initiatives like trees plantation, solar lighting and electric car charging points for our employees. These actions are a commitment and a summary of our standards of the ISO14001 certificate, which we have acquired and actively implemented into our workplace policy.”
  • Waste: Circular economic practices are one huge challenge for the future. “Thus, we see waste as food. We have developed a waste management system that segregates category by category our waste, whether it would go to another recycling unit or to proper disposal. Usha Yarn’s employees are trained to handle and dispose of the waste in a proper way. Our goal is to take circular practices and measure effluent discharge, reduce waste and ultimately recuse it to 100 per cent in the future.”

 

Social

Social

Health: Companies are people, and people have to be cared for. Usha Yarn’s approach to employee’s welfare is core. “We arrange several activities helping our employees to keep their health at a great condition, such as health seminars, yoga workshops, awareness sessions, medical check-ups, emergency services and insurance.

Safety: “We strive hard to ensure a safe work environment for our employees. We protect our people by a wide range of safety initiatives such as safety, health, and hygiene trainings with mock drills. We are committed to our strict policies on the exclusion of child labour, smoking, sexual abuse and harassment at our workplace.” Usha Yarns designed the plant with great attention to highlight the necessary risk areas and emergency exits, which can be easily marked at every workstation.

Welfare: Happy employees are the best employees. “We believe that a workplace should be more than just work. We are working to improve our community by addressing the need for global sustainable practices. We are dedicated to advance education for our youth, reduce unemployment in close communities and empower women by improving the gender ratio in the workforce. Usha Yarns integrated national labour law standards and encouraged employees to create a workers committee, to embrace challenges in our community. Our working environment supports families by offering them a crèche on the campus. Moreover, our campus offers a hostel, residence and a gym at its availability to our employees.”

The company is working closely with the surrounding villages to build a strong infrastructure for public schools to ensure equality in education. “Children are the future of our country and constitute a great priority for sustainable development on a global scale. Unemployment is a worldwide issue; we are doing our best on a local scale and organise workshops for unemployed youth to train them to retain their jobs.”

Empowering women is a key to strategy. “We are committed to offering women favourable opportunities and to improve the gender-ratio for our company. We want to make sure that women feel free and sophisticated in our working environment and receive equal opportunities in our society.”

Sustainability is human and humans have to be treated sustainably.

 

Viewpoint

Overall Circularity Viewpoint


Ever since Nielsen published in its customer survey report year 2015 that more than 60 per cent customers prefer products that are sustainably produced, the demand for sustainable goods has been growing year on year. It has been a proven fact that closed loop textiles are more sustainable because they can better support the ecosystem.

The Global Organic Textile Standards (GOTS) prohibits harmful and hazardous processing methods, driving industry to innovate alternative non-hazardous and sustainable techniques. GOTS certification helps in market entry. It also improves prospects for enterprises in less-developed countries leading to improved industrial performance. Suvastra India wants to achieve 100 per cent capacity in GOTS certified cotton production by 2022.

Being at the forefront of the supply chain, fashion brands can drive this demand by offering more sustainable merchandise. “Textile waste recycling is a practical solution to achieve sustainability goals when we close this loop. Recycled yarn still needs our confidence, as we always tend to describe and measure it with the same yardstick as we do for virgin textiles.”

 

Initiatives

Circularity Initiatives

“We transform textiles waste into new yarn with the lowest ecological influence to support more sustainable fashion and lifestyle brands in making apparel and home furnishing products. We aim to support the sustainable dream of textiles which was a large contributor in polluting the environment by creating waste, land and water contamination, toxic fumes and harmful chemicals. We work closely with designers, apparel brands and technocrats to recycle materials into innovative yarn suitable for luxury and high-quality fashion.

 

Production

Sustainable Production

“We produce GRS-certified pre-dyed 100 per cent recycled cotton and poly-blended yarns in 10 to 30s Ne count range by using garment cutting waste and PET bottles waste recycled poly fibres which are fine in quality and suitable to make knit or hosiery fabric for sustainable garments.”

 

Contact Us

Phone : +91-172-2654531, +91-9216702205
Email : info@ushayarns.com
Web : www.ushayarns.com

Our Location

Usha Yarns Limited
707, Phase 1, Industrial Area,
Chandigarh (India)- 160002