Fashion’s environmental toll: Textile waste and the urgency for sustainable solutions

The world is on the verge of an impending crisis of textile waste, brought about as a result of the combined effects of a rising global population, burgeoning living standards and the shorter lifecycle of textile products. Textile recycling is the answer to help combat the enormous amount of waste created by the fashion and textile industries. While this is crucial to the growth of the textile waste recycling industry, practical and actionable interim solutions are still necessary. Textile waste is a significant stain on human life from both economic and environmental perspectives. From raw materials to finished products, clothing production from natural or synthetic sources can play a role in pollution and waste generation. This review article analyzes the economic and environmental implications of the fashion and textile industries. It assesses these waste recovery technologies and techniques, as well as the recycling at various stages of production and the use of the resulting recycled products. The recycling processes for textile waste have made some notable advances; however, some gaps remain unaddressed. Challenges include multi-scaler industrialization, waste treatment and separation processes, as well as waste contamination, such as mixed chemicals. And greater awareness is needed among consumers of the value of fiber-to-fiber recycling, as technological progress in this field has not matched its need. On the whole, this article is a good resource to gain a sense of the current landscape of recycling and recovery in textiles, clothing, and fashion.