From Cotton Leftovers to Everyday Products: ACT Featured by AllAfrica

Materials once treated as waste are becoming part of a growing circular industry in Kenya.

Africa Collect Textiles was featured in an AllAfrica and Bird Story Agency article exploring how Kenyan enterprises and community groups are creating value from cotton residues, short fibres, broken threads and textile offcuts.

The feature highlighted ACT’s work at its Baba Dogo facility in Nairobi, where different types of discarded textiles are sorted and processed into useful consumer products. ACT General Manager and Co-founder Alex Musembi shared how the organisation transforms recovered materials into high-quality products, including blankets, mops and kitchen-cleaning towels.

ACT’s work forms part of an emerging textile-recovery value chain that is keeping offcuts and discarded fibres out of municipal waste streams. It also demonstrates how materials that might otherwise be dumped can support local manufacturing, product development and employment.

Why this Matter

Kenya produces textile offcuts and fibre waste across farms, ginneries, factories and garment-making workshops. However, much of this material is scattered across different locations, making collection, sorting and transportation difficult and expensive.

ACT’s work demonstrates the importance of organised recovery systems that connect discarded materials to productive uses. By collecting, processing and transforming textile waste locally, Kenya can reduce dumping, retain material value and create new opportunities for manufacturing and employment.

The feature also highlights the need for stronger aggregation and processing infrastructure. Building local capacity would enable Kenyan manufacturers to access a more consistent supply of recovered materials, reduce reliance on imported cotton waste and strengthen the country’s circular textile economy.