Papers

61,005 results
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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

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

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

Invisible Waste, Circular Solutions: an Action Research Experience in the Energy Industry

Researchers applied action research methodology to investigate circular economy solutions for textile waste at a multinational energy company in Brazil, proposing an upcycling-based approach to reduce and mitigate the socio-environmental impacts of textile waste generation in industrial settings.

2025
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

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

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

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

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

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

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
Review Tier 2

A literature review on environmental management in the textile industry focused on waste management.

This review examines environmental management practices in the textile industry with a focus on waste management strategies, analyzing 2,275 articles from ScienceDirect and IEEE. Researchers found that poor waste management across the textile supply chain has worsened due to rising global demand, with significant negative impacts on air, water, and soil quality.

2025 Journal of Physics Conference Series
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

Gaps, challenges and drivers for environmentally sustainable textile and garment manufacturing in India

This is a policy and sustainability study reviewing the challenges and opportunities for environmentally sustainable textile manufacturing in India; it is not a microplastics research paper, though synthetic textile production is indirectly linked to microfiber pollution.

2023 8 citations
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

Competitiveness of Enterprises in Manufacture of Textile: Empirical Evidence of Czech Republic

This paper examines how innovation and circular economy principles are increasingly shaping competitiveness in the European textile manufacturing sector. Textiles are a major source of microplastic fiber pollution through both manufacturing wastewater and consumer washing, making circular approaches to textile production particularly relevant for reducing microplastic release.

2023 Visegrad Journal on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Development
Article Tier 2

Microplastic emissions in textile wet processing: Progress, challenges, and mitigation strategies

This review examines how textile wet processing, including dyeing and finishing operations, contributes to microplastic emissions that are more substantial in volume and chemically diverse than those from domestic laundry. Researchers found that mechanical forces, water, and chemical treatments during industrial processing release significant quantities of synthetic microfibers into wastewater. The study explores mitigation strategies including bioengineered materials, improved textile design, surface coatings, and enhanced filtration technologies.

2025 The Science of The Total Environment 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Possibility Routes for Textile Recycling Technology

This review examined possible routes for textile recycling technology, covering chemical, mechanical, and biological methods, and highlighted the urgent need for efficient, cost-effective recycling processes to address the fashion industry's growing environmental impact.

2021 Polymers 176 citations
Article Tier 2

Textile Wastes: Status and Perspectives

This review examined the status and perspectives of textile waste management, noting that global fiber production exceeds 110 million tons annually and generates enormous waste volumes as population growth and improved living standards drive textile consumption. The study assessed current disposal pathways, recycling challenges, and the environmental burden of textile waste including microfiber pollution.

2020 IntechOpen eBooks 79 citations
Article Tier 2

Fibras Sintéticas como um tipo de microplástico: caminhos para o setor têxtil atuar no combate ao lixo no mar

This Brazilian doctoral thesis examines synthetic fiber release from textile laundering as a major source of microplastic pollution in waterways and the ocean. The work reviews textile parameters affecting fiber release and analyzes certification and regulatory strategies that the textile sector could adopt to reduce marine fiber litter.

2023
Article Tier 2

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.

2023 Global Journal of Ecology 9 citations
Article Tier 2

Avaliação dos Impactos Ambientais nos Solos e Cursos D’água Resultantes do Descarte Inadequado de Resíduos Têxteis

This review examines the environmental impacts on soils and water bodies resulting from improper disposal of textile industry waste, both liquid effluents and solid residues. Researchers analyzed contamination pathways, pollutant types, and the severity of impacts given the textile industry's intensive water use and significant pollutant release into aquatic environments.

2025 Revista Semiárido De Visu
Article Tier 2

Toxic Chemicals in Textiles and the Role of Microplastic Fibres as a Source and Vector for Chemicals to the Environment

This review examines how the chemical-intensive textile industry releases toxic substances throughout the product lifecycle, and critically evaluates the contested role of microplastic fibers as vectors for transporting chemical contaminants to biota and the broader environment.

2022 4 citations