Shared climate, unequal burdens: climate vulnerabilities in the textile recycling value chain in Bangladesh

Abstract

Textile waste recycling is increasingly critical to the garment industry’s efforts to meet international sustainability standards and enhance resource efficiency. However, climate change, manifested in extreme heat and prolonged rainfall in Bangladesh, poses serious challenges to both recycling processes and the people involved in them. While existing studies have emphasised environmental impacts on the garment industry, far less attention has been paid to how climate stress differentially affects actors across textile recycling systems, particularly within informal networks. Drawing on a political ecology perspective and a contextual vulnerability framework, this study examines how climate-related risks are experienced and negotiated by key actors in Bangladesh’s textile recycling value chain, including RMG management, RMG workers, informal recycling business owners, and their workers. The findings reveal how formal–informal divides, structural inequalities, and financial insecurity interact with institutional and political conditions to shape uneven exposure to climate risks and constrain adaptive capacity. As global sustainability and circular economy policies increasingly shape local production landscapes, these dynamics risk deepening exclusion for informal workers who play a critical role in recycling systems for countries like Bangladesh.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Local Environment, 2026 · DOI ↗