Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Fundamental Challenges and Opportunities for Textile Circularity

Researchers conducted qualitative research with textile industry stakeholders to identify fundamental challenges in transitioning to a circular economy. The study highlights urgent needs including standardized definitions to prevent greenwashing, improved sorting and recycling systems for post-consumer textiles, and innovations in mechanical recycling to maintain material value and reduce environmental pollution from textile waste.

2024 Sustainability 11 citations
Article Tier 2

Facilitating a Circular Economy for Textiles workshop report

Researchers convened a workshop to examine how the textile industry can shift toward a circular economy — one where materials are reused and recycled rather than discarded — covering challenges in fiber identification, sorting technology, and policy standards. The report outlines key technical and regulatory barriers that must be addressed to reduce textile waste, including microfiber pollution from washing.

2022 22 citations
Article Tier 2

Perspectives of Textile Waste Management in the U.S. – A Review

This review examines the growing textile waste crisis in the United States, driven by fast fashion and population growth, and surveys current disposal and recycling practices. Textile waste is an important but underappreciated source of synthetic microfiber pollution when fabrics degrade or are laundered.

2022 Journal of Textile Science & Fashion Technology 6 citations
Article Tier 2

A review of the socio-economic advantages of textile recycling

This review analyzed current trends in textile recycling, identifying economic, logistical, and technical barriers that keep global textile recycling rates low despite significant environmental and socioeconomic benefits. The authors argue that moving toward circular economy models for textiles would reduce microfiber pollution, conserve resources, and create employment, but requires coordinated policy incentives.

2019 Journal of Cleaner Production 376 citations
Article Tier 2

Navigating the Legislative Interventions, Challenges, and Opportunities in Revolutionizing Textile Upcycling/Recycling Processes for a Circular Economy

This review examines the legislative interventions, challenges, and opportunities in transitioning the textile industry toward a circular economy. The authors highlight that despite advances in recycling technologies, challenges persist in collecting, sorting, and processing textile waste at scale. The study discusses emerging solutions including bio-based chemical processes and thermochemical recycling, alongside regulatory efforts like the EU's Sustainable and Circular Textiles Strategy.

2024 ACS Sustainable Resource Management 12 citations
Article Tier 2

Sustainable Textile Industry: An Overview

This review examines the environmental sustainability challenges of the textile industry, covering chemical pollution, high water and energy consumption, and solid waste generation at every production stage, while discussing strategies such as sustainable materials, cleaner processing, and circular economy approaches.

2022 Non-Metallic Material Science 26 citations
Article Tier 2

Combining Flexible and Sustainable Design Principles for Evaluating Designs: Textile Recycling Application

Researchers developed a framework combining flexible and sustainable design principles to evaluate textile recycling technologies. The study addresses the growing environmental burden of textile waste in the U.S., where over 15 million tons are discarded annually with less than 15% recycled, contributing to microplastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed evaluation method aims to help identify recycling approaches that are both economically viable and environmentally responsible.

2023 Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Analysis of Textile Circularity Potential

This study analyzed circularity potential across fashion, home, and technical textile sectors using 15 sustainability criteria and found that fashion textiles have the greatest opportunity for circular economy development due to their market size and the cost-effectiveness of recycling investment.

2023 Environmental and Climate Technologies 8 citations
Article Tier 2

Recycling and valorization of textile waste

This review examines the textile industry's contribution to environmental pollution, focusing on synthetic fiber waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and microplastic release driven by fast fashion and overconsumption. It surveys EU regulatory efforts and circular economy strategies aimed at improving textile recycling and reducing the environmental footprint of synthetic materials.

2025 Serbian Journal of Engineering Management
Article Tier 2

Systematic Insights into a Textile Industry: Reviewing Life Cycle Assessment and Eco-Design

This systematic review of life cycle assessments for the textile industry identified key environmental impact hotspots across the supply chain, finding that fiber production and dyeing processes dominate environmental burdens and that eco-design strategies offer the greatest improvement potential.

2023 Sustainability 25 citations
Article Tier 2

Textile recycling- A review

This review examines textile recycling approaches for diverting the fast-growing global textile waste stream from landfills, covering mechanical, chemical, and thermal recycling methods and highlighting barriers including fibre blends, contamination, and economic viability that limit current recycling rates.

2021 Global Journal of Engineering and Technology Advances 8 citations
Article Tier 2

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.

2023 Environment Development and Sustainability 223 citations
Article Tier 2

Analysis of Socio-economic, Technological, Environmental Characteristics of the Life Cycle of Textile Products

This review analyzes the socio-economic, technological, and environmental characteristics across the full life cycle of textile products and their impacts on human health and natural resources. The analysis found that 45% of textiles can be reused and 30% processed into technical textiles, and that extending service life by nine months can reduce energy, water, and CO2 emissions by up to 30%.

2022 Herald of Khmelnytskyi National University Technical sciences
Article Tier 2

The current situation of fast fashion industry and how to reduce the waste

This paper reviews the environmental problems caused by the fast fashion industry and evaluates current and emerging solutions including circular economy design and advanced recycling technologies. The authors argue that traditional waste disposal is no longer adequate for the volume of textile waste generated. Transitioning to circular fashion models could reduce the textile fiber microplastics that wash off synthetic clothing into waterways.

2023 Advances in Economics Management and Political Sciences 2 citations
Article Tier 2

How can we deal with the large amount of microplastics delivered to landfills and released into the environment by fast fashion? A practical valorization approach for mitigating textile fibrous microplastics before affecting the environment.

Researchers proposed a practical valorization approach for managing fibrous microplastics generated by fast fashion textile waste, addressing the challenge of large volumes of textile microplastics entering landfills and the environment through a circular economy framework to intercept fibers before environmental release.

2022 Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Article Tier 2

Textile Waste Recycling: Emerging Technologies, Environmental Challenges, and Sustainable Solutions

This review synthesizes current knowledge on textile waste recycling, covering mechanical, chemical, and biological recycling technologies alongside environmental challenges and sustainability trade-offs. The authors highlight microfiber shedding and hazardous dye contamination as key barriers to effective textile circularity, and identify emerging solutions including enzymatic processing and closed-loop fiber-to-fiber recycling.

2025 American Journal of Polymer Science and Technology
Article Tier 2

From Simplistic to Systemic Sustainability in the Textile and Fashion Industry

This paper is not about microplastic pollution. It examines sustainability challenges in the textile and fashion industry, arguing that current approaches are simplistic and insufficient. It proposes systemic solutions focused on circular value retention and sufficiency-based consumption to address waste, resource depletion, and pollution from fast fashion.

2023 Circular Economy and Sustainability 15 citations
Article Tier 2

Synthetic dyes: a barrier to circular economy within the textile industry?

This review found that synthetic dyes embedded in textiles are a major barrier to fiber-to-fiber recycling because dye removal is chemically complex, generates hazardous byproducts, and can itself release microplastic fibers and toxic solvents. Life-cycle analyses of recycled textiles show inconsistent environmental benefits, partly because the recycling process creates new pollution. The authors argue that designing clothes without synthetic dyes from the outset would dramatically improve the environmental performance of the fashion industry's growing circular economy ambitions.

2026 Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
Article Tier 2

A call for a fashion pact: challenges and opportunities for circular economy in the brazilian fashion industry

This paper examines the challenges and opportunities for circular economy practices in Brazil's fashion industry, which produces large amounts of textile waste. Textiles are a major source of microplastic fiber pollution, and transitioning to circular models could significantly reduce plastic emissions from clothing manufacturing and laundering.

2023 OBSERVATÓRIO DE LA ECONOMÍA LATINOAMERICANA 2 citations
Article Tier 2

State of the Art in Textile Waste Management: A Review

This review examines the current state of textile waste management, from collection and sorting to recycling technologies. Researchers found that advances in near-infrared sorting, chemical recycling, and biological recycling are creating new possibilities for recovering value from discarded fabrics. The study highlights that textile waste is a significant contributor to landfill volume and microplastic pollution, making improved management essential for environmental sustainability.

2023 Textiles 88 citations
Article Tier 2

Sustainability Challenges of the Textile Industry

This review examines the environmental, social, and economic sustainability challenges facing the global textile industry, including high water consumption, chemical pollution, labor exploitation, and the compounding effects of fast fashion on waste generation and resource depletion. The authors argue that addressing these interconnected challenges requires a multidimensional approach spanning supply chain transparency, regulatory reform, and shifts in consumer behavior.

2025 IntechOpen eBooks
Article Tier 2

Valuing Modern Technologies to Boost the Circular Economy in the Fashion Industry

This study examines how modern technologies can support circular economy principles in the fashion industry, focusing on reuse, repair, reconditioning, and recycling strategies to reduce plastic and textile pollution.

2024 Proceedings of the ... International Conference on Business Excellence
Article Tier 2

A Systemic Material Innovation Study of the Current State and Future Possibilities for Circular Polyester

Researchers conducted a Systemic Material Innovation (SMI) study interviewing 20 industry experts to identify barriers and opportunities for transitioning polyester textiles to a circular economy, finding that design for reuse and recycling -- particularly replacing elastane -- is central to achieving circular polyester.

2023 Sustainability 5 citations
Article Tier 2

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.

2025 Sustainability 1 citations