Scope
Unlike many people’s belief, current ways of recycling in global textile industry create so many issues environmentally. For example, a large portion of packaging materials is produced in Asia and shipped to all over the globe, e.g., North America, Europe, etc., then it gets shipped back to Asia for recycling. This process creates a lot of carbon footprint from the collecting, transporting (trucking, ocean-shipment, etc.), etc. Another example is that conventional recycling processes involve use of enormous amount of chemicals for cleaning dirt contains in plastic wastes. In addition, most of the current recycling is done through heavy mechanical crushing of plastics which in turn creates a large quantity of microplastic contaminations in our water systems. Furthermore, there are many other implications of recycling such as decreased strength of fibers, additional processes of heavily harmful processes for environment such as dyeing, etc., involved in most of the whole recycling processes currently practiced in the industry (Refer to the graphics below for more details).
