OE mills to halt ops against high price of cotton waste

COIMBATORE: The Open End (OE) spinning mills producing grey cotton have announced halting operations once their current stock of waste cotton gets over in protest against an increase in its price.

Despite a drastic drop in cotton prices, the price of cotton waste has increased sharply by nine to 11 per cent over the last three months.

“As cotton arrivals commenced with the start of the cotton season in October, the price dropped by Rs 4,000 to Rs 6,000 per candy. Eventually, the spinning mills across the country reduced yarn prices by Rs 8 to 10 per kilogram since last month. However, over the past two months, the price of waste cotton -- a byproduct of the spinning process has been raised by Rs 2 to Rs 4,” said M Jayabal, president of the Recycled Textile Foundation.

He further pointed out that OE mills, which supply yarn to handloom and power looms, cannot raise their yarn prices to match the increased cost of waste cotton. “If the prices do not drop, the mills will operate only on their current stock of waste cotton to avoid losses. Almost 50 per cent of mills may have waste cotton stock only for another 15 days. Also, the OE mills powered by solar power will operate during the day, while others will take two days off per week until the situation becomes normal,” Jayabal added.

Tamil Nadu has around 600 OE mills, which produce a range of value-added products with waste cotton, used fabric and as well as recycling pet bottles into fibre. Of them, around 400 OE mills are concentrated in Coimbatore, Tirupur and Erode districts alone. The OE mill owners have demanded that the state and central governments intervene to take measures to keep the prices of waste cotton under check as more than lakh workers are dependent on the sector for their livelihood.