Panipat textile recycling: workers lose limbs as safety lags

Six textile workers in Panipat suffered devastating limb injuries in a single week this August, according to a Guardian investigation into the north Indian city that recycles much of the world's discarded clothing. Reporters checked reports from 11 private hospitals and two government hospitals between 17 and 24 August. Two men lost an arm, one lost both, another lost a hand, one lost a leg, and a sixth lost their fingers.

Suraj Kumar, 19, is one of the men behind those numbers. He travelled from West Bengal to Panipat hoping to send money home to his parents, and spent three months feeding discarded clothes into shredding machines. In late August an electrical short circuit threw him into the shredding mechanism, crushing both arms. He had been an only child supporting his parents; now he fears he is a burden on them.

Panipat handles more than 1m tons of used clothing a year, shipped in from the US, Canada and Europe, and tears it back into fibre for yarn. Some 20,000 factories employ about 300,000 people, turning out home furnishings for brands including H&M Home, Ikea, Primark, Tesco and Walmart. Ramesh Chaudhary, an environmental activist who has tracked injuries in the city for five years, estimates at least one worker a day loses a limb, and as many as five on some days. He blames machinery that lacks safety mechanisms: cutting the power on a spinning machine may not stop it in time. During repeated visits, the Guardian saw no safety gear and no worker who reported safety training.

India's 1948 Factories Act obliges owners to protect workers and report serious accidents, but oversight looks thin. Sandeep Sachdeva, co-founder of the Safe in India Foundation, says buyer audits lean toward commercial requirements and product quality rather than workplace safety, while government inspectors must now notify factories before visiting, turning them into what he calls a facilitator-cum-inspector. Arvind Kumar, officer in charge at one of Panipat's 12 police stations, says three workplace injury cases have been registered there this year, one involving a death, and that fewer than 1% of such cases ever reach police.

Losing a limb means losing a living. Ramashankar Singh, in his fifties and originally from Bihar, put in 18 years at Panipat's factories before a hot ball bearing fell on his foot last year. The wound was wrapped in discarded cloth and he was sent to a pharmacy; by the time his employer arranged hospital treatment, infection had spread and his leg was amputated above the knee. He says the owner promised him another job, as a cook or security guard, and help securing a disability pension. Neither came, and he now relies on a prosthetic leg from a charity.

Indrapal Singh lost his arm in 2017 when his hand was caught in a carding machine that tore away the skin; the infection led to amputation, and the factory owner refused to pay his hospital bills. He spent six years fighting through the courts and says he got nothing, after police told him he had signed documents withdrawing his complaint, something he disputes because he cannot read or write. His only support is a government pension of 5,700 rupees, about £45. Chaudhary says workers have almost no leverage against owners who are financially powerful and sometimes politically connected, and that a legal fight is simply not an option for many. Textiles is India's second-largest employer after agriculture, with more than 45 million people directly employed, and roughly 92% of that workforce is informal; in Panipat the figure tops 90%, according to Ina Bahuguna of Reverse Resources, which monitors the city's textile waste. Factory owners who spoke to the Guardian said seasonal migration was the reason they hire on contracts or piece rates rather than permanent positions.