Textile Re-Engineering: Eco-responsible solutions for a more sustainable industry

Even with constant scientific advancement and technological development, the manufacturing activities of textile industry have changed little in relation to the original production systems, especially in poor/emerging countries, which concentrate the largest production volumes in the globe. Therefore, the polluting loads deposited in the soil, in the water, and in the atmosphere, in addition to the forest impacts caused by the textile industry are a serious problem. For these reasons, it is important to recognize how these problems affect society and how urgent it is to find more effective solutions. In this context, the present research aims to investigate the sectorial processes that make up the textile production chain, and show how each segment of this chain negatively affects the environment. Also, considering the problems that each textile process generates, from an ecological point of view, this work searched for types of eco-responsible actions that could be suggested, studied and/or implemented (within current technical/technological possibilities), to make the entire production chain more sustainable. Thus, the content presented in this study aims to address an idea of re-engineering, that is, something that can be rethought, reevaluated, renewed, and restructured within the scope of traditional textile processes, considering eco-responsible solutions for increased environmental sustainability.