Saudi Arabia produces nearly 500,000 tons of clothing waste every year, according to a report by the Fashion Commission. Despite its magnitude, this figure accounts for less than 1 percent of the country’s total municipal waste. Yet it signals a promising opportunity in a sector still in its early stages locally: textile recycling.
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A striking example of this shift can be seen in the Ihram garment recycling project. In 2023 alone, pilgrims and Umrah visitors consumed over 8,000 tons of white fabric. If this trend in fabric use continues, the figure is projected to climb to nearly 18,000 tons by 2030.
Despite the availability of such volumes, textile recycling is not yet fully carried out within the Kingdom. A large share of discarded clothing is shipped to overseas facilities, such as Isko in Turkey, due to the lack of local facilities capable of processing textiles at a commercial scale. The report notes that sorting and treatment are often conducted abroad, after which the finished products are re-exported.
On the other hand, the report highlights that the value of recycled second-hand clothing amounts to around 250 million SAR annually. This significant sum is currently injected into foreign markets, even though the entire process — from collection to recycling — could be carried out within the Kingdom. If recycling were done locally, this economic value could remain inside Saudi Arabia, fueling facilities, creating jobs, and building new industries linked to fashion and sustainability.
The report points out that one of the main technical challenges is the difficulty of sorting blended fibers and the limited availability of suitable recycling technologies. The Ihram garment, however, stands out as a practical exception, since it is made mostly of white cotton, which makes it easier to recycle.
By contrast, new technological solutions have begun to emerge, such as the use of artificial intelligence in sorting and innovations in spinning recycled fibers. This indicates that technical barriers are gradually receding as the market evolves and pilot projects advance.
Amid the global shift toward a circular economy, these insights suggest that commercial projects in fashion recycling could emerge as one of the new pathways for Saudi Arabia’s fashion industry, not only for environmental reasons, but also as an untapped economic and productive opportunity.
