Sustainable Fibres for Fashion Industry: Volume 2

153 Pages·2016·3.59 MB·English

by  Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu

Environmental Footprints and Eco-design
of Products and Processes
Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu
Miguel Angel Gardetti Editors
Sustainable
Fibres for
Fashion
Industry
Volume 2
Environmental Footprints and Eco-design
of Products and Processes
Series editor
Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu, SGS Hong Kong Limited,
Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13340
Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu
Miguel Angel Gardetti
Editors
Sustainable Fibres
for Fashion Industry
Volume 2
123
Editors
Subramanian SenthilkannanMuthu Miguel AngelGardetti
Environmental Services Manager-Asia Centerfor Studies onSustainable Luxury
SGSHong KongLimited BuenosAires
Hong Kong Argentina
Hong KongSAR
ISSN 2345-7651 ISSN 2345-766X (electronic)
Environmental Footprints andEco-design of ProductsandProcesses
ISBN978-981-10-0565-7 ISBN978-981-10-0566-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0566-4
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016930270
©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaSingapore2016
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Preface
Theneedforsustainablefibresourcesisinevitable—recognizingthisisthefirststep
toward attaining sustainable development in the entire textiles and clothing
industry. Hence we decided to put together dedicated volumes with the express
purpose of dealing with this important subject. This is the second volume on
sustainable fibres for the fashion industry—is a continuation of the first. This
volumecomprisessixwell-writtenchaptersthatdealwithsustainablefibresforthe
fashion industry.
Thisvolumebeginswithachapterwritten byGeetha DissanayakeandSrimala
Perera, titled New Approaches to Sustainable Fibres. The chapter chiefly deals
withthebasicconceptof“designtocompost”thepurposeofwhichistoaddressthe
challenges facing sustainable fashion. A systematic review on current trends in
nature inspired the authors to investigate sustainable textile fibres. Detailed dis-
cussions pertaining to potential research avenues for compostable textile fibres are
also dealt with.
The second chapter titled Consumer Perceptions of Fibres with Respect
to Luxury and Sustainability: An Exploratory Study, authored by Cathy
A. Rusinko and Marie-Eve Faust, is a detailed study of consumer perceptions of
fibres with respect to luxury and sustainability. This study comprises a survey,
consisting of theory-grounded questions put to a sample of young consumers. The
findingsshowthatyoungconsumershaveatendencytoperceivemostfibres(with
the exception of two fibers) as either luxurious or sustainable—but not both.
The third chapter on Sustainable Natural Fibres from Animals, Plants and
Agroindustrial Wastes—An Overview, written by Shahid-ul-Islam and Faqeer
Mohammad,highlightssourcesandimportantcharacteristicsofvarioussustainable
natural fibres derived from various natural sources: namely wool, cotton, ramie
(a flowering plant in the nettle family) and jute. Discussions related to the pro-
duction of cellulose and protein-based natural fibres from agricultural wastes are
also included.
v
vi Preface
The fourth chapter titled Sabai Grass: Possibility of Becoming a Potential
Textile, authored by Asimananda Khandual and Sanjay Sahu, examines the pos-
sibility of utilizing sabai grass (Eulaliapsis binata) as a sustainable textile fibre
source for different textile applications. The chapter presents the history and
socioeconomicimportance,chemicalconstitutions,fibreproperties,recentresearch
and potential application alternatives for sabai grass fibre.
The fifth chapter titled Potential of Ligno-cellulosic and Protein Fibres in
SustainableFashion,writtenbyKartickK.Samanta,S.Basak,S.K.Chattopadhyay
andP.Chowdhury,presentsanoverallpictureofvariouslignocellulosicandprotein
fibres for various textile applications in the fashion industry. The authors take a
complete journey around various important aspects (production, physical and
chemical properties, applications) of these fibres and thefabricsmade from them.
The sixth chapter titled Milkweed—A Potential Sustainable Natural Fibre
Crop, authored by T. Karthik and R. Murugan, revolves around milkweed fibres
and fabrics made from them. The chapter presents a good deal of information
pertainingtothehistoryofthemilkweedplantandfiberssuchasfibermorphology
and characteristics, spinnability, fabric properties and potential application in
clothing, lightweight composites,oil sorption, andthermalandacousticinsulation.
We are confident that readers of the two volumes of Sustainable Fibres for
Fashion Industry will get a lot of very useful information about the various sus-
tainable fibres employed in the fashion sector. We would like to mark our sincere
thankstoalltheauthorswhohavecontributedthesixchapt.inthissecondvolume
for their time and effort.
Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu
Miguel Angel Gardetti
Contents
New Approaches to Sustainable Fibres. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Geetha Dissanayake and Srimala Perera
Consumer Perceptions of Fibers with Respect to Luxury
and Sustainability: An Exploratory Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Cathy A. Rusinko and Marie-Eve Faust
Sustainable Natural Fibres from Animals, Plants and Agroindustrial
Wastes—An Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Shahid-ul-Islam and Faqeer Mohammad
Sabai Grass: Possibility of Becoming a Potential Textile. . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Asimananda Khandual and Sanjay Sahu
Potential of Ligno-cellulosic and Protein Fibres
in Sustainable Fashion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Kartick K. Samanta, S. Basak and S.K. Chattopadhyay
Milkweed—A Potential Sustainable Natural Fibre Crop. . . . . . . . . . . . 111
T. Karthik and R. Murugan
vii
New Approaches to Sustainable Fibres
Geetha Dissanayake and Srimala Perera
Abstract Sustainability is becoming a prerequisite to the future of the fashion
industry. A sustainable vision of the fashion industry relies on fibre, material and
product-based innovations. Sustainable fibres not only contribute to solving the
environmental burden, but also are becoming a new trend in the fashion market.
Moreover, the focus of the fashion industry today is moving beyond the design
aspects of products into functional and therapeutic features. While the term “sus-
tainable fibre” still accentuates organic cotton or recycled polyester, most other
innovations addressing sustainability together with desirable features are stuck in
the niche. The journey towards sustainable fibers is seemingly challenging with
many failures. However, exciting innovations are emerging fast, challenging the
traditional ways of producing fibres. One such way is emulating nature (biomim-
icking)infibre-to-fabricproduction.Biomimickingresearchintextileproductionis
a rapidly growing area and its true potential in the development of entirely sus-
tainable fibres has yet to be discovered through interdisciplinary research with an
understanding of the holistic approach of nature in its formation of organisms.
Nature provides excellent examples of complex functional systems, which are
created through entirely sustainable processes. Most importantly, those natural
systems leave no trace of waste at the end of their lives. Keeping nature’s way in
mind, this chapter pushes the concept of design to compost to address the chal-
lenges facing sustainable fashion. The chapter also reviews some examples of
currenttrendsinnaturethatinspiresustainabletextilefibersanddiscussespotential
research avenues for compostable textile fibers, which need to take on board the
zero-waste approach of nature.
G.Dissanayake(&)
DepartmentofTextileandClothingTechnology,UniversityofMoratuwa,
Moratuwa,SriLanka
e-mail:[email protected]
S.Perera
InstituteofTechnology,UniversityofMoratuwa,Moratuwa,SriLanka
©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaSingapore2016 1
S.S.MuthuandM.A.Gardetti(eds.),SustainableFibresforFashionIndustry,
EnvironmentalFootprintsandEco-designofProductsandProcesses,
DOI10.1007/978-981-10-0566-4_1
2 G.DissanayakeandS.Perera
1 Introduction
Mass production and fast supply chains have become the buzzwords of every
business in today’s competitive world. In the textile industry, this had led to
increasedproductionoffibres,yarnsandfabricsatanincrediblerate.Asaresultof
the variety of textiles available today the fashion industry is rapidly moving from
traditional four-seasonal fashion collections to a fast fashion business that offers
new collections almost every month. Fast fashion produces disposable clothing by
mimickingluxuryfashionbrands [16],wheretheintroductionandobsolescenceof
newtrendsoccurrapidly.Thefastreplicationoffashionandmass-scaleproduction
significantly reduce the price and quality of the final product. The availability of
cheapclothesgraduallychangesthemindsetsofpeoplefromthrifttoextravagance.
Landfills are starting to overflow with clothes because businesses and consumers
overlooked what to do when those clothes are no longer needed.
More than six billion people inhabit our planet today (as of 2016) and they
produce millions of tons of waste each day. It is almost unimaginable that textile
waste is forecast to be the fastest growing waste category between 2005 and 2020
[7]. Most textile waste requires years to decay and takes up significant land space,
directly threatening the wellbeing of organisms on the planet. Recently, the
invention of fast-response systems promoting overabundance and disposability as
well as increasing the demand for fast fashion has made the situation much worse
[13, 32]. Consumers have started purchasing fashion clothing and throwing them
awayataprofligaterateandwastehasaccumulated.Mostwasteendsupinlandfills
without any kind of treatment. These materials hold compounds that release toxic
chemicals or take unpredictably long times to break down. Only a fraction, a very
small percentage, is recycled or remanufactured, although that is insufficient to
offsetthedamagebeingdonetotheenvironmentbythetextileandfashionindustry.
This chapter looks at fashion production from a new perspective and argues that
“compostablefashion”,whichismadefromcompostablefibresandleavesnowaste
whendiscarded,wouldbeoneofthebestwaystoenhancethesustainabilityofthe
fashion industry.
2 Challenge of Sustainable Fashion
Usually,fashionandsustainabilityareoftencontradictory[8,21]andthechallenge
forthefashionindustrytodayistofindthebestpossiblewaystomergethem.While
thereisnouniversaldefinitionof“sustainablefashion”,manypeopleinthefashion
industry lok atit from the perspective of their own positions in the process. At the
beginningofthisprocess,atextileproducermightlookatitfromtheperspectiveof
energy consumption, water consumption, toxic chemicals in the process and
workingconditionsinthemills.Next,aconcernedfashiondesignerwouldidentify
itaspromotinganeco-label.Then,foragarmentmanufacturer,itcouldbefairand