Environmental Sustainability through Clothing Recycling

Abstract

This paper examines the process of achieving environmental sustainability through recycling of textile wastes. The recycling of textile waste can serve as a mean of providing solutions to many financial and environmental problems such as high cost of waste disposal and diminution of natural resources. The benefits and problems of this exercise are also highlighted. There are benefits to all three aspects that define sustainability: economical, social and environmental but there are also negative aspects too. The conclusion drawn is that the recycling of waste is of huge benefits especially in solving the numerous environmental problems and boosting the nation’s economy. To quantify potential ecological benefits and economical effects of textiles waste recycling, the paper proposes modeling framework which makes trade off between costs of reverse network for textiles waste establishing and operating, and its effects on the virgin materials consumption, land use reduction, employment increase, and resold wearable textiles earnings.