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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to The Environmental Impacts of Fast Fashion on Water Quality: A Systematic Review
ClearEnvironmental 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.
The Impact of Fast Fashion on Marine Plastic Pollution
This paper reviews the fast fashion industry's contribution to waterway pollution, explaining that cheap synthetic clothing sheds microplastic fibers during production and washing, and that the industry's rapid growth — especially in Asia — is making this a significant global pollution source. The authors propose manufacturing regulations and consumer behavior change as solutions to reduce the volume of synthetic microfibers entering waterways.
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.
Sustainable Fashion
This review of sustainable fashion examines how the textile industry's shift to fast fashion has accelerated environmental damage, including the shedding of synthetic microfibres — a major source of microplastic pollution in waterways — and argues that circular production models and consumer behaviour change are needed to reduce the industry's footprint. The paper is relevant because textile microfibres are among the most commonly detected microplastics in marine and freshwater environments.
Sustainability of the Fashion Industry: An Examination of the US Fashion Industry's Impact on Water Quality
Researchers examined the impact of the US fashion industry on water quality, conducting a review of the literature on garment production-related water pollution while noting that the US has been underrepresented in global studies that typically focus on countries with large manufacturing sectors. The study found that domestic fashion industry activities contribute measurably to water quality degradation, including through microfiber and chemical discharge.
The impact of fast fashion on the environment and climate change
This paper examines how fast fashion's rapid production cycles and disposable consumer culture contribute to growing environmental impacts including carbon emissions, water pollution, and textile waste. The disposal of fast fashion clothing releases synthetic microfibers and eventually contributes to microplastic pollution in soils and waterways.
Evaluating the environmental impacts of textile and fashion industries
This review evaluated the environmental impacts of the global textile and fashion industries, finding that resource overconsumption, water pollution, synthetic fiber microplastic release, and vast waste generation make these sectors major drivers of ecosystem degradation.
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.
Synthetic Textiles and Microplastics
This review examines how synthetic textiles shed microfibers during washing and drying, covering the mechanisms of release, the environmental fate of microfibers in aquatic systems, and strategies for reducing microplastic pollution from the fashion and textile industry.
SUSTAINABLE FASHION INDUSTRY: Why do we need a switch towards conscious consumption?
This thesis examines the fashion industry's environmental and social harms, including its significant contribution to microplastic pollution through synthetic textile washing, and argues for a shift toward more conscious consumer behavior. Fast fashion is one of the largest sources of synthetic microfibers entering waterways globally.
Fashion to Dysfunction: The Role of Plastic Pollution in Interconnected Systems of the Environment and Human Health
This review traces how the fast fashion industry contributes to microplastic pollution through the production, laundering, and disposal of synthetic textiles. Researchers found that microplastic fibers released from clothing bypass wastewater treatment and accumulate in human organs including the liver, lungs, and brain. The study highlights urgent gaps in understanding airborne textile microplastic emissions and calls for changes in textile design to reduce fiber release.
Slow Fashion in a Fast Fashion World: Promoting Sustainability and Responsibility
This study examines the "slow fashion" movement as a sustainable alternative to fast fashion, analyzing how different business models, consumer behaviors, and policy frameworks can shift clothing production and consumption toward more responsible practices. Slow fashion is directly relevant to reducing textile microfiber pollution, since synthetic clothing is a major source of microplastics in wastewater.
Microfibers from synthetic textiles as a major source of microplastics in the environment: A review
This review examines how synthetic textile garments release thousands of microplastic fibers during each wash cycle, making laundry a major source of microplastic pollution. Even though wastewater treatment plants capture most fibers, billions still escape into waterways each day because the incoming volume is so enormous. These fibers end up in rivers, oceans, and soil, where they can be consumed by aquatic life and eventually reach humans through the food chain.
Environmental Degradation due to Synthetic Fibres
This review chapter examines how synthetic textile fibres—nylon, polyester, rayon, and acrylic—contribute to microplastic pollution through their entire lifecycle, from manufacturing to washing. Because these fibres shed millions of microfibre particles into waterways with every laundry cycle and persist indefinitely in the environment, the global textile industry is identified as a major, ongoing source of plastic contamination.
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.
Microplastic pollution in aquatic environments from washing synthetic textiles
Washing synthetic textiles releases microplastic fibers into wastewater, and this study reviewed the scale of the problem and explored strategies to reduce emissions at the washing machine, garment design, and wastewater treatment levels. Textile laundering is considered one of the largest sources of microplastic fiber pollution reaching aquatic environments.
Microplastic pollution from textiles: A literature review
This review examines the current state of knowledge on microplastic pollution, focusing specifically on synthetic microfibre shedding from textiles during washing and the significance of this source for marine and freshwater contamination.
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.
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.
The Global Clothing Oversupply: An Emerging Environmental Crisis
This study examines how the global fast fashion industry drives environmental damage through massive overproduction and rapid disposal of clothing, which contributes to microfiber pollution and textile waste. Researchers surveyed consumers and found growing awareness of sustainability issues but a gap between awareness and purchasing behavior. The study advocates for greater traceability in clothing supply chains and a shift toward more sustainable business practices.
Transformation Toward Slow Fashion: A Literature Synthesis on the Ecological and Social Impacts of Fast Fashion
This review synthesized literature from 2014 to 2024 on the ecological and social impacts of fast fashion, finding that the industry contributes up to 10% of global carbon emissions, generates significant microplastic and textile waste, consumes large water volumes, and is linked to labor exploitation — while identifying slow fashion as a viable sustainable alternative.
Textile industry as a major source of microplastics in the environment
This review examines the textile industry as a major source of microplastic pollution, synthesizing data on recycling technologies and lifecycle assessments for synthetic textile fibers. It identifies barriers to progress — including fiber lamination with metals, rapidly changing fiber types, and low recycling efficiency — and argues that only a globally coordinated reduction in synthetic fiber production will meaningfully curb microplastic release. The textile sector is one of the largest contributors of microfibers to aquatic environments, making systemic change in this industry critical.
Emission of fibres from textiles: A critical and systematic review of mechanisms of release during machine washing
This systematic review examines how washing clothes in machines releases microfibers, both natural and plastic, into wastewater. Understanding the factors that drive fiber release during laundry is important because these microfibers are a major source of microplastic pollution in waterways and oceans, and they ultimately enter our food and water supply.
Appalling or Advantageous? Exploring the Impacts of Fast Fashion From Environmental, Social, and Economic Perspectives
This study explored the environmental, social, and economic impacts of fast fashion, finding that while low-cost clothing provides consumer benefits, the industry generates substantial negative externalities including textile microplastic pollution, excessive water use, and exploitative labor conditions in developing countries.