Panipat, India
Inside the dusty, dimly lit cotton recycling unit, Rajesh stands beside a shredding machine, feeding white fabric into sharp blades.
These are the remnants of clothes discarded in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and elsewhere that arrive in the northern Indian city of Panipat by the truckload, spilling over in loose, overflowing heaps.
Inside warehouses, garments pile up to the ceiling. In one unit, discarded clothes are stripped of zippers and buttons. Elsewhere, fibers are spun into thread, dyed, bleached, and rewoven into rugs, carpets and blankets.
Workers move inside the units quickly, sorting the scraps by color and fabric, feeding a system designed to keep up with the pace of global consumption. Some of the clothes still have charity shop price tags; others appear to have been lightly worn.
Panipat is a terminus for fast fashion –– the modern trend that sees people buying more clothes but wearing them for less time. Typically, the clothes are not designed for longevity, and more than a million tons of them end up here each year to be repurposed.
On paper, it looks like a circular solution to fast fashion’s waste problem. But in reality, each step carries its own devastating cost on the city’s people and its environment.
Fine layers of cotton cling to the stubble of a veteran textile worker’s chin and settle into the creases of his face. More dangerously, tiny fiber particles enter his throat and lungs. “I’m coughing constantly, all day and I get short of breath,” says the worker, who CNN is calling Rajesh to protect his job.
Rajesh has been breathing this air for decades and has a dry, persistent cough. Still, he has no option but to continue. The industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in and around Panipat, drawing migrants like him from poorer regions who depend on the modest but steady income.
Chemicals used in textile production present a health risk for workers who breathe in the fibers. When CNN visited three clothing recycling units in early February, none of the workers were wearing face masks or other protective clothing.
But the risks in Panipat’s textile industry do not stop here.
Reeta Devi works in a clothing recycling unit to support her husband, who’s been unable to work since injuring his leg on a machine in the same industry last August. “I have to work,” she says. “I have three children.”
Panipat, known as India’s “textile city,” sits just north of Delhi and its industry relies largely on informal labor. Most workers here have no health insurance or formal benefits. If they fall sick or get injured, they lose their income and receive little to no support from their employers.
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Reeta’s work carries its own strain. “When the dust flies a lot, it becomes hard to breathe,” she says. Some workers like Reeta accept the risks of the job, because there are so few options for other employment in the city. “There are going to be problems in this kind of work,” she says.
A few kilometers away, another former textile worker, Sanagar Alam echoes a similar sentiment. He used to work at a dyeing unit and points to boils on his neck that he says were caused by chemicals dripping onto his skin. “When we work with the chemicals, there’s vapor that comes out,” he tells CNN. The workers cover their own medical expenses, he says. “The company does not pay for it.”
Inside one dyeing unit visited by CNN, workers handled hot, heavy chemicals with bare hands. A sharp chemical stench hung in the air as steam rose from machines in confined spaces, and dyed wastewater flowed into exposed drains, leaving the floors slick and stained.
There were no gloves, no masks in sight –– nothing to separate workers skin from corrosive substances or their lungs from the fumes.
When asked about conditions inside these dyeing units, Nitin Arora, president of Panipat’s Dyeing Association, says workers were responsible for using safety equipment provided by the factories.
“Workers are uneducated; that’s why they don’t wear masks,” he tells CNN. “Everything is provided by the owner … but they remove and keep the masks aside. What can the owner do?”
CNN contacted several government agencies including the Haryana Labor Department, Pollution Control Board and National Green Tribunal for comment on reported water contamination and health concerns, but has not received a response.
Most textile workers Dr. Bhawani Shankar, a respiratory specialist, treats have strikingly similar symptoms, all linked to exposure to clothing factory dust.
They arrive with breathing difficulties that worsen over time. “As the disease progresses, it can lead to fibrosis,” the pulmonologist says, noting that by then the damage is largely irreversible.
Northern India already has some of the world’s most polluted air, created by a toxic mix of vehicle and industrial emissions, crop residue burning, and construction dust.
Shankar says the working environment in Panipat’s recycling units contributes to poor health. “If they continue inhaling the same air every day, it definitely shortens their lifespan.”
But the damage doesn’t end there. Waste from the textile dyeing and bleaching process is often discharged into open drains, carrying the impact far beyond factory walls into water systems that millions in and around Panipat rely on.
Water in these areas has shifted from resource to risk. It is still used for washing, irrigation, and agriculture in many nearby villages.
A 2022 household survey found that nearly 93% of families reported serious health problems over a five-year period, with widespread work-related illness and increasing long-term conditions.
“There is no one here who is unaffected,” says Dr Vikas Sharma, who lives in Shimla Gujran village in the Panipat district. “Everyone is troubled by this water. 15 years ago, we did not see these diseases.” Sharma has seen a substantial rise in cases of skin issues, allergies and cancer in his community. He suffers from asthma himself.
The government has issued notices to shut down allegedly illegal bleaching units linked to industrial pollution in Panipat, and reportedly sealed some units and borewells. But former irrigation department officer Dr. Shiv Singh Rawat says not enough is being done. “Accountability is missing from all sides,” he tells CNN. “From the government, from the industry, and even from the public.”
In areas surrounding the city’s textile clusters, wastewater from dyeing units flows through open drains that cut across farmland and residential neighborhoods. In some stretches, the water is stained with chemical residue.
Rawat says that effluent treatment systems are not consistently used. “Some units claim to have them, but everyone is bypassing it,” he says.
The toxic, acidic wastewater ultimately reaches the Yamuna River, a key water source for millions in northern India, including Delhi, says Rawat.
India’s environment court, the National Green Tribunal, has previously flagged regulatory gaps in the textile sector, noting that some units continue to discharge untreated effluent despite existing rules.
The tribunal is currently hearing a petition that claims Panipat’s textile recycling industry is illegally discharging industrial waste and emissions.
CNN contacted several government agencies about the allegedly illegal bleaching units but has not received a response.
The afterlife of fast fashion is hard to ignore in Panipat. It lingers in the air, runs through open drains, and shapes the daily risks for workers and nearby communities.
Discarded clothing continues to arrive in this city, where it’s sorted, shredded and rewoven before re-entering global supply chains.
These clothes might have a new life, but it’s the people here who pay the price.