Global textile production has almost doubled in over a decade – from 58 million tonnes in 2002 to 109 million tonnes in 2020, it’s reached 119 million tonnes in 2023. Fast fashion, a trend that offers a variety of styles at lower prices, has prompted fabric manufacturers in India and other countries to produce more clothes. While this has caused a positive boom in the textile industry, its impact on the environment and people’s health and safety haven’t been the same. This blog will highlight the key Impacts of Textile Manufacturing on the environment. They are analyzed in three phases: textile production, consumer consumption, and post-usage or end-of-life.
Textile Industry’s Challenges
Sustainability is a constant challenge for woven and knitted fabric manufacturers. Before a piece of clothing reaches a wardrobe, it goes through several stages, such as harvesting fiber, spinning yarn, weaving fabric, dyeing, washing, printing, finishing, and assembling. Due to this long and complex production chain, it is challenging to ascertain its overall impact on the environment.
However, here is something that can help you understand: the global textile industry contributes to 3.9 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year. To put it in perspective, it signifies 8 – 10% of the total global CO2 emissions and more than what the aviation industry generates each year.
Textile production consumes an unimaginable amount of clean water, land, and raw materials. For instance, to make just one cotton T-shirt, 2700 liters of clean water are used, which is equivalent to a person’s drinking needs for nearly three years.
In short, textile production causes water shortages and depletes good-quality agricultural soil needed for food production. Fast-fashion woven and knitted fabric manufacturers in India also mass-produce clothing, which poses a severe threat to the workers in the mills and factories. This includes exposure to cotton dust, exposure to high sound levels, chemical exposure, and ergonomic issues.
Impact of Textile Industry in the Production Life-Cycle
The impact of the textile industry can be ascertained by splitting the process into three phases: Production, Consumption, and Post-Use. Below, we will check the environmental impacts contributed by each phase.
Textile Production Phase
This phase contributes 50% to 80% of the textile industry’s total environmental impact. The production phase includes procuring raw materials such as cultivating cotton, mining petroleum, chopping wood, or rearing sheep for wool, transforming raw material into fibers, spinning fiber into yarn at factories, and sending them to fabric manufacturers in India and other countries for making garments, dying, and finishing.
One of the major issues is that many of the steps in textile production are scattered across different countries or regions. For instance, cotton may be harvested in India, spun in China, and sent to knitted fabric manufacturers in Bangladesh, which are ultimately sold in Australia. This textile supply chain also creates a significant amount of carbon footprint.
Raw Materials: Textile raw materials include renewable fibers like cotton, wool, and bamboo, as well as fossil-based fibers like nylon and polyester. Sustainability in the textile industry is complex, as renewable fibers impact land use while synthetic fibers contribute significantly to CO2 emissions.
Water Wastage: Textile production often strains local water supplies in dry areas, causing shortages and pollution. Additionally, cotton cultivation uses extensive pesticides, contaminating groundwater, while the production of materials like viscose requires substantial water, particularly for waste processing. Fabric manufacturers in India also need water for various production processes, like spinning, dyeing, and washing.
Arable Land: Fertile lands needed to produce food ingredients or conserve nature are being used to grow crops for textile manufacturing, especially natural fibers. Arable lands and pastures are also being used for sheep grazing. While the exact amount of land used for a piece of clothing varies significantly depending upon the fiber, on average, for 1 kg of textile, 5.1 to 27 square meters of land is needed.
Greenhouse Emissions: Garment production in factories, mainly located in countries like China, India, and Bangladesh, consumes vast amounts of energy, relying heavily on polluting coal and gas power plants. Synthetic fabrics produce high CO2 emissions during petroleum extraction, refining, and garment recycling, while plant-based fabrics like cotton and bamboo have variable emissions based on production methods. The rise of Fast Fashion has increased synthetic clothing production due to its lower cost and ease of processing.
Chemical Usage: About 20% of all pollution is generated from garment dyes and finishing treatments used by woven and knitted fabric manufacturers. As the chemicals leak into the water and air, they can harm the environment, workers, and residents nearby. For instance, pesticides and fertilizers can contaminate the groundwater. They may not pose a threat if the chemicals are properly decomposed.
Textile Consumption Phase
Research indicates that textile consumption during the consumption phase contributes 25% to 30% of the total environmental impact of textile production. The consumer plays a significant role here, as it begins when a consumer buys a garment or piece of textile. This phase includes washing clothes, drying, ironing, transportation, etc.
– For example, the number of times a consumer uses the washing machine and dryer to wash and dry clothes has a significant impact on the environment.
-Washing textiles and garments less often can immediately reduce their ecological footprint and save 40-50 liters of water per wash. Washing in cold water can reduce energy consumption by 80%, and drying laundry on a clothesline can not only save money but also keep clothes new for an extended period. Using natural detergents over chemically formulated soap can also improve ecology.
Plastic products are abundantly used in the textile lifecycle—production, processing, supply chain, wearing, and washing. The number is significantly higher for synthetic fabrics. These microplastics ultimately end up in the sea, overwhelming nature by leaving toxic substances behind.
Sustainable textile production involves more than just using eco-friendly materials; it also focuses on product longevity and durability. High-quality clothing not only lasts longer, reducing the frequency of replacements, but also offers comfort, retains its appearance over time, and facilitates reuse through multiple owners. This emphasis on quality influences consumer behavior toward a more circular and conscientious approach to clothing, enhancing sustainability throughout the product lifecycle.
Post-Use or End-of-Life Phase
Because of the fast-fashion trend, consumers today dispose of clothes more quickly than they used to a decade ago. Annually, 92 million tonnes of textile waste are discarded globally. This includes post-consumer waste from used clothes and other textile products. These discarded clothes are dumped and burned in landfills, with only 1% being recycled into new clothing. This mass incineration leads to greenhouse gases and chemicals entering the environment.
Recycling technology has only recently emerged, and the process proves particularly challenging and sometimes impossible for synthetic clothes and fabric blends. Most woven and knitted fabric manufacturers in India use two to three materials to create fabric blends. Before recycling, all types of fibers must be individually extracted from the piece of clothing. This process is expensive and cannot be applicable on a large scale.
Conclusion
No matter your position within the textile industry – whether you’re a manufacturer, a consumer, a designer, or a mediator – it’s imperative to work towards a more sustainable and environmentally friendly sector. A key action is moving towards a circular production model, where textiles and garments are designed to be reused and recycled. It’s important for fabric manufacturers in India and across the globe to focus on crafting high-quality, durable materials while concidering the Impacts of Textile Manufacturing on health and safety. Moreover, fashion designers and influencers should actively advocate for sustainable practices and reject the fast fashion model.
Damodar Menon International places a high emphasis on the textile sector’s sustainability. Our portal Texchange allows you to trade textiles online to different traders and cotton suppliers, It’s advanced technology gives you complete control of whome you want to supply your textiles and choose which location you want to receive orders! We collaborate with a network of woven and knitted fabric manufacturers in countries like India, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, and the USA, among others, who are committed to sustainability and actively work towards it.
