Impact Assessment and Product Life Cycle Analysis of Different Jersey Fabrics Using Conventional, Post-Industrial, and Post-Consumer Recycled Cotton Fibers

Rute Santos () and Maria José Abreu
Additional contact information
Rute Santos: Valérius Têxteis S.A, 4750-078 Barcelos, Portugal
Maria José Abreu: 2C2T-Center for Textile Science and Technology, Textile Engineering Department, University of Minho, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 13, 1-28

Abstract: The textile industry generates a large amount of waste, producing approximately 92 million tons of textile waste annually, much of which ends up in landfills. This alarming figure highlights the need for an urgent waste management strategy. Mechanical recycling has emerged and is being explored as an alternative to manage this waste, enabling the transformation of discarded textiles into recycled fibers for the production of new materials. In this study, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was conducted for five different knitted fabrics, considering the origin of their cotton content: from virgin cotton to post-industrial and post-consumer recycled cotton fibers, to evaluate the environmental impact of each fabric. The analysis revealed that the spinning, dyeing, and finishing processes were the primary contributors across multiple environmental impact categories. Specifically, for the Water Scarcity Potential (WSP) indicator, these processes accounted for 96% of the total impact. In terms of raw material contributions to water scarcity, organic cotton fiber had the highest impact at 54%, followed by post-consumer recycled cotton at 24% and post-industrial recycled cotton at 22%. Variations in environmental contributions were also observed for the remaining impact categories. A key challenge in this study is the lack of a dedicated impact category in LCA that directly quantifies the environmental benefits of using recycled materials. Specifically, current LCA methodologies do not have a standardized metric to measure the impact reduction achieved by substituting virgin fibers with recycled ones, even though comparisons indicate reduced impacts.

Keywords: life cycle assessment (LCA); mechanical recycling; environmental impact; post-industrial recycled cotton; post-consumer recycled cotton; organic cotton (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/13/5700/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/13/5700/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:13:p:5700-:d:1683734

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().