A child was struck by gunfire in early April during a clash between two factions in Enayetnagar, Fatullah, Narayanganj, triggered by the unloading of “jhut” — fabric scraps, cutting waste and leftovers discarded by ready-made garment factories. Several others were injured in the same episode.

The episode was not an isolated one, according to law enforcement and local sources. Since the change of government, more than 50 violent clashes have erupted across the country’s industrial belts over control of the jhut trade. Local political figures and influential groups stand accused of involvement.

Garment industry insiders and law enforcement officials say that as the ready-made garment sector has expanded, the jhut economy has moved well beyond waste management. The control of this trade has morphed into something larger: a complex, informal architecture of local power. Conflict over the jhut trade now surfaces routinely in multiple industrial zones.

Bangladesh’s garment industry generates enormous volumes of jhut each year including offcuts, residual yarn and defective garments discarded by factories. The material is recycled into new clothing or sometimes burned as boiler fuel in the factories themselves. Various studies and industry estimates place annual output at roughly 400,000 to 577,000 tonnes. A vast informal economy has taken shape around this garment waste. An estimated 200,000 people in districts such as Gazipur, Narayanganj, Dhaka, Bogura, Gaibandha and Pabna depend directly or indirectly on the sector for their livelihood.

The jhut economy also carries significant export potential. Research conducted under the project “Towards a Circular Economy in Bangladesh’s Apparel Industry,” supported by the German development agency GIZ and the global fashion brand H&M, found that Bangladesh could create a $4 to $5 billion export opportunity in recycled textile products. Realising that figure would require the right policy support, as well as proper collection and processing infrastructure. The same study notes that the informality of the jhut supply chain, the market’s dependence on middlemen and limited recycling capacity currently blunt much of that potential.

From jhut come T-shirts, children’s wear, sweaters, shawls, blankets, socks, mufflers, rope and household goods. Pabna has built a jhut-based T-shirt industry. Gaibandha produces sweaters, socks and rope. In Bogura, recycled yarn is turned into blankets and winter clothing. Sources said that some Pabna-made goods even reach markets in India, Nepal, Bhutan and, to a limited extent, Malaysia.

Bangladesh’s jhut market does not operate on competitive terms. In most cases, factory owners cannot sell their waste freely. The entire supply chain is controlled by local collector groups, middleman networks and informal contractual relations. Several industry sources say a large share of the groups that dominated field-level collection, transport and warehousing before the political changeover remain firmly active.

Gazipur serves as the central distribution hub for Bangladesh’s jhut trade, where clashes over control regularly make headlines. On April 21, two factions fought over the waste contract at the Hop Lun Intimate Ltd. factory in Kaliakair, injuring at least 10 people. Local sources and police traced the violence to a long-running dispute over jhut collection and supply.

Jhut collection and the extortion rackets tied to it have always been controlled by local political groups. The capital’s Mirpur and Pallabi areas, along with Gazipur, Narayanganj and the Savar EPZ, see the most frequent violence over the trade. During the ousted Awami League’s one-and-a-half-decade rule, many local party leaders used armed muscle and demonstrations to dominate jhut-linked extortion and business in these zones. One leader of the now-banned party’s Dhaka Metropolitan North unit drew particular notoriety at the time.

The political changeover has triggered fresh conflicts over the control of the jhut trade and extortion across the country’s industrial clusters. Local sources say the bloodshed signals the rise of new extortionist groups forming under political patronage to capture the trade.

According to law enforcement and local sources, the Fatullah shooting is one of more than 50 such clashes since the change of government. In most of these episodes, allegations point to the involvement of locally powerful groups with political backing.

Industrial Police sources said field-level control of the jhut trade remains concentrated in the hands of locally dominant groups. Their influence has produced an undeclared command structure over collection, transport and supply that stifles market-based competition.

Asked for comment, Additional IGP of the Industrial Police Gazi Jasim Uddin told Bonik Barta: “As ever, the jhut trade is run by locally powerful groups. This creates disputes and clashes between factions in different areas, which disrupt the normal working environment of industrial zones.”

New research by Circle Economy and Labour at Informal Economy (LIE) finds that control solidifies at the very first step of the jhut supply chain. Locally powerful individuals or power brokers determine who gains access to factory scraps, set the initial price and decide who may trade in the market. The material then passes through multiple layers of middlemen, warehouse owners and traders before reaching end-users. This layered control structure curtails market-based competition and raises the risk of conflict.

The LIE policy brief notes that local power brokers and middlemen also play a decisive role in setting raw material prices. That command over price injects opacity into the market and serves as a persistent source of friction.

Stakeholders argue that bringing the sector within a formal institutional framework is essential to curb the cycle of dispute and violence. Proposals include registering jhut workers and traders, creating district-level databases, establishing a grievance mechanism, building a transparent traceability structure and forming a working group that brings together the government, factory owners, worker representatives and development partners. Such measures, they say, would increase market transparency and reduce control-driven conflict.

No organised or structured marketplace exists for finished goods made from jhut. Small entrepreneurs consequently struggle to find consistent buyers, breeding uncertainty in both production planning and investment decisions.

This multi-tiered structure also distorts prices. Data shows that the price of jhut can multiply several times over between the factory gate and the final market. Middle-tier control and influence mean the actual producers or factory owners frequently receive far less than the prevailing market rate.

Bangladesh’s jhut economy took root in the 1980s, after the expansion of bonded warehouse facilities and duty-free raw material imports spurred the growth of countless garment factories in the capital’s Mirpur, Kalshi, Matikata, Uttara and surrounding areas. These factories began generating vast quantities of scraps.

An informal economic architecture grew up around the jhut from that period onward, drawing middlemen and influential groups into collection, transport and sales at every level. The control structure has shifted over time, but its fundamental informality remains unchanged.

Mirpur eventually became a flashpoint for violent conflict over the jhut trade’s control. The economics and the violence later radiated outward to Gazipur, Narayanganj and other industrial zones.

Industrial Police sources say a proposal for an institutional framework to bring transparency and end conflict in the jhut trade is under discussion at multiple levels. The plan envisions a central authority comprising government agencies, industry bodies and law enforcement. Under its remit, jhut could be bought and sold on digital platforms through open tendering.

BKMEA President Mohammad Hatem told Bonik Barta that the field-level collection and supply network remains largely intact. “The bulk of those collecting and supplying jhut are the same as before,” he said. “But since the political changeover, new ‘bhai’ (local strongmen) and spheres of influence have sprung up in different areas. Control used to be exercised through political patronage, and in many places the same reality persists.”

He added: “The real tragedy is that many factory owners lack even the freedom to decide who buys their own jhut. In many cases they are also denied the actual market price.”

Garment sector insiders say jhut cannot be dismissed as waste, calling it a significant economic resource. The government, they argue, could introduce centralised collection, digital auctions or a transparent trading platform. That would secure fair prices for factory owners, reduce dependence on middlemen and curb the violence over control.

Experts believe that transparency and the formal transformation of the jhut economy’s control structures are becoming critical for Bangladesh’s future industrial stability.

Rezaul Karim Shohag, chair of the criminology department at Dhaka University, argues that containing the violent struggle for control of the jhut trade requires goodwill from the police, the administration and political parties. He told Bonik Barta: “Any business that offers high returns on a small investment breeds competition, and with it comes crime — murder, assault, threats. Jhut is a low-investment, high-profit business. We want the business and the competition to continue, but the criminality must be controlled. That demands coordination among local authorities, police and politicians. Political crime must be eliminated through nodal governance. Transparent rules for the jhut trade should be drafted and publicised if necessary.”