Textile waste is no longer just an environmental issue; it is becoming a multi-billion-dollar business. In late March 2026, a 10-billion-yuan project with an annual capacity of 1 million tons of green circular materials officially broke ground in the Jiangling Development Zone, Jingzhou. Led by the Fortune 500 company Hengyi Group, the project aims to become Central China's base for textile waste recycling, creating a closed loop from collection to regeneration.
Background
The textile waste recycling industry has long suffered from fragmented, inefficient, and poorly managed feedstock collection. Jingzhou Hengyi's solution is deep integration with postal and supply cooperative networks, leveraging the postal service's extensive rural and urban outlets and logistics advantages. To date, Jingzhou has achieved full coverage of its recycling network, with nearly 13,000 collection points nationwide—almost 7,000 in Hubei Province alone—processing over 2,000 metric tons daily and accumulating 200,000 tons in total.
This network accelerated in early 2026. On January 14, Jianli Post signed an agreement linking 314 grassroots postal outlets; on April 21, Shishou Post followed. Simultaneously, Hengyi partnered with supply cooperatives to establish a three-tier (county, township, village) standardized collection system, deploying 1,792 sites and smart recycling bins for instant cash-out via QR code scanning.
Industry Impact
From a feedstock security perspective, Jiangling County has built a 200,000-cubic-meter storage facility, 100,000 cubic meters already operational, with plans to reach 400,000 cubic meters static and 1 million cubic meters dynamic turnover capacity within the year. This ensures stable raw material supply for downstream processing, reducing seasonal and regional volatility. For downstream recycled fiber and polyester producers, the predictability of feedstock price and quality will improve significantly.
The core technology is chemical recycling. Unlike mechanical methods, chemical recycling can handle blended and dyed textiles, producing high-purity feedstock while reducing incineration and landfill pollution. Once scaled, this technology could reshape the domestic recycled material market—currently, China has large recycled polyester staple fiber capacity but relies heavily on imports for high-grade recycled chips. Hengyi's million-ton capacity may alter this landscape.
The replicability of the public-private partnership model is another key variable. Originating in Jingzhou, the model has been deployed across multiple regions, accelerating a scaled and regionalized development pattern. The "Five Entries" campaign (into communities, schools, enterprises, nursing homes, and hotels), coordinated by the municipal commerce bureau, along with the "Yi Recycling" WeChat mini-program, enables one-click pickup booking, free door-to-door service, and paid recycling, significantly lowering public participation barriers.