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Papers
20 resultsShowing papers similar to Tracing Fiber Sustainability
ClearTowards Sustainable Textiles for a Safer Planet: Main Topics
This review critically examines sustainability claims in the textile industry, arguing that despite advances in fiber development and recycling, true sustainability requires addressing microplastic shedding, energy use, and resource depletion throughout the full textile lifecycle. The authors distinguish between genuine sustainability and greenwashing.
The Phenomenon of Greenwashing In The Fashion Industry: A Conceptual Framework
This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding greenwashing in the fashion industry, where brands make misleading environmental claims. The fashion industry is a major source of synthetic microfiber pollution, making honest sustainability reporting especially important for environmental protection.
A Review of Sustainability Standards and Ecolabeling in the Textile Industry
This review examines sustainability standards and eco-labels in the textile industry, which is a major source of microplastic pollution through synthetic fiber shedding during manufacturing and washing. The authors found that while many eco-labels exist, they vary widely in rigor and often do not specifically address microplastic release. Stronger and more consistent standards are needed to reduce the textile industry's contribution to microplastic contamination in waterways and the environment.
Sustainability Initiatives in the Fashion Industry
This paper examines sustainability efforts in the fashion industry, where synthetic textiles are a major source of microplastic fiber pollution during washing. It reviews industry initiatives and consumer behavior changes aimed at reducing environmental impacts, including microfiber shedding.
Sustainability Challenges in the Fashion Industry: Managing Waste and Ethical Labor Practices
Despite its title referencing microplastics, this paper studies sustainability challenges in the fast fashion industry — not microplastic pollution specifically. It examines consumer behavior, ethical labor practices, textile waste management, and greenwashing, with no substantive focus on microplastic fiber emissions or health impacts. It is not directly relevant to microplastic science.
Clothing and Textile Sustainability
This review examines sustainability challenges facing the global clothing and textile industry, covering resource use, chemical pollution, and the growing problem of microfiber release from synthetic textiles. Synthetic garments shed millions of microplastic fibers with every wash, making the textile industry a major contributor to global microplastic pollution.
Sustainability trends and gaps in the textile, apparel and fashion industries
Researchers conducted a 20-year systematic review of sustainability in the fashion and textile industry, identifying consumer behavior, circular economy practices, and supply chain transparency as the three main research themes. The review highlights that synthetic textile fibers — a major source of microplastic pollution — are embedded in a complex industry that still lacks coherent sustainability standards across its global supply chains.
Microfibres from apparel and home textiles: Prospects for including microplastics in environmental sustainability assessment
This review examines how synthetic textiles release plastic microfibers during production, use, and laundering, making them a major source of microplastic pollution. Researchers found that textile microfibers may account for up to 35% of primary microplastics entering marine environments and can persist for decades in soils. The study discusses factors affecting fiber release from fabrics and calls for better assessment methods to understand the environmental and potential health risks of this widespread contamination.
Addressing the Sustainability Conundrums and Challenges within the Polymer Value Chain
This review critically examines sustainability challenges across the polymer value chain, including misconceptions about biobased and biodegradable plastics. Researchers analyze the emergence of bioplastics, compare plastic products against their alternatives, and assess greenwashing in the fashion industry. The study highlights the growing importance of addressing microplastics contamination and urges the research community to scrutinize superficial sustainability claims.
Unraveling the ecological impact of textile microfibers: Current knowledge and research challenges
This review examines the ecological impact of textile microfibers, a major subset of microplastic pollution released during laundry and fabric wear. Researchers found significant knowledge gaps regarding how these fibers affect organisms and ecosystems, particularly when interacting with other environmental contaminants. The study calls for more standardized research methods and greater attention to this pervasive but understudied form of microplastic pollution.
A critical review on environmental pollution caused by the textile industry
This review examines how the textile industry contributes to environmental pollution, including the release of microplastics from synthetic fibers during washing. The study highlights that non-biodegradable materials like polyester, nylon, and acrylic shed microplastic fibers that enter water systems, potentially harming marine organisms and entering the human food chain.
Microfibre and nanofibre: pollution and environmental impacts
This review examines microfibres and nanofibres — shed from clothing and textiles during use and washing — as a significant but poorly quantified category of environmental pollutants. Up to 4.28 million metric tonnes of microfibres enter the environment each year, with synthetic garment laundering responsible for about 35% of that total, yet natural fibre shedding is largely ignored in sustainability assessments. The authors argue that both synthetic and natural microfibres need to be included in environmental impact frameworks, especially as fast fashion drives ever-increasing textile production.
Laundry Care Regimes: Do the Practices of Keeping Clothes Clean Have Different Environmental Impacts Based on the Fibre Content?
This study examined how different textile fiber contents influence the environmental impacts of clothing care, finding that synthetic fiber garments generate more microplastic shedding during washing while natural fibers have other environmental trade-offs. Laundry care choices and fiber content both affect how much microplastic pollution is released into wastewater from household textile washing.
Environmental Pollution by the Fast Fashion: Current Status and Prospects
This review examines the environmental footprint of fast fashion — mass clothing production that generates enormous textile waste, synthetic fiber shedding, and water pollution. It is relevant to microplastics because synthetic garment washing is one of the largest sources of microfiber pollution entering waterways, though the paper focuses on industry-level sustainability responses rather than quantifying microplastic release specifically.
Exploring Microplastic and Natural Fiber Emissions from Fabrics and Textiles
This review examines microplastic and natural fiber emissions released from fabrics and textiles during use and washing, identifying textiles as a major but underappreciated source of microplastic pollution in the environment. The authors assess emission factors and the downstream environmental and health implications of synthetic fiber shedding.
Role of Textile Industries in Microfiber Pollution
This review examines the role of textile industries in generating microfiber pollution, tracing microfiber release during fabric production, consumer use, laundering, and end-of-life disposal as synthetic textile demand grows with fast fashion. The review documents pathways by which textile microfibers enter freshwater and marine environments and accumulate in aquatic biota, linking industry growth trends to escalating environmental microfiber loads.
Does Use Matter? Comparison of Environmental Impacts of Clothing Based on Fiber Type
A comparative environmental assessment of different textile fiber types found that synthetic fibers like polyester had lower production impacts in some categories but higher use-phase impacts due to microfiber shedding during washing. The findings underscore that the environmental impact of synthetic textiles cannot be evaluated from production alone — fiber release during laundering adds a significant pollution pathway.
Life Cycle Based Comparison of Textile Ecolabels
This life cycle analysis compared multiple textile ecolabels for their coverage of key environmental impact categories including microplastic fiber release, finding significant gaps in how current labels address the full environmental footprint of textile production.
Fibrous Microplastics Release from Textile Production Phases: A Brief Review of Current Challenges and Applied Research Directions
This review examines how microplastic fibers are shed during various stages of textile production, from spinning and weaving to dyeing and finishing. Researchers found that fibrous microplastics account for roughly half to 70% of all microplastics found in global wastewater, primarily originating from synthetic fabric manufacturing and household laundering. The study identifies gaps in current knowledge and explores recycling technologies and regulatory approaches that could help reduce textile microplastic pollution.
Understanding the Flows of Microplastic Fibres in the Textile Lifecycle: A System Perspective
The lifecycle flows of microplastic fibers through the textile industry were mapped, identifying key stages from fiber production through washing and disposal where fibers are shed and enter the environment. This systems-level analysis supports targeted interventions to reduce fiber microplastic pollution at source.