Recent Trends in Sustainable Textile Waste Recycling Methods: Current Situation and Future Prospects

Abstract

In recent years, there have been increasing concerns in the disposal of textile waste around the globe. The growth of textile markets not only depends on population growth but also depends on economic and fashion cycles. The fast fashion cycle in the textile industry has led to a high level of consumption and waste generation. This can cause a negative environmental impact since the textile and clothing industry is one of the most polluting industries. Textile manufacturing is a chemical-intensive process and requires a high volume of water throughout its operations. Wastewater and fiber wastes are the major wastes generated during the textile production process. On the other hand, the fiber waste was mainly created from unwanted clothes in the textile supply chain. This fiber waste includes natural fiber, synthetic fiber, and natural/synthetic blends. The natural fiber is mostly comprised of cellulosic material, which can be used as a resource for producing biobased products. The main challenge for utilization of textile waste is finding the method that is able to recover sugars as monosaccharides. This review provides an overview of valorization of textile waste to value-added products, as well as an overview of different strategies for sugar recovery from cellulosic fiber and their hindrances.

Chapter 7 was originally published as Pensupa, N., Leu, S-Y., Hu, Y., Du, C., Liu, H., Jing, H., Wang, H. & Lin, C. S. K. Top Curr Chem (Z) (2017) 375: 76. DOI10.1007/s41061-017-0165-0.