Main thematic areas associated with post-consumer textile waste: Literature review

Abstract

The current production system of the fashion industry presents environmental, economic and social impacts that go beyond those arising from the manufacturing processes and extend throughout the entire life cycle of the products. In this context, the disposal stage of textile articles is critical, due to the scarcity of alternatives worldwide for managing this waste. This article aims to investigate the main thematic areas that are being addressed in research associated with post-consumer textile waste. The investigation was conducted based on a Systematic Bibliographic Review (RBS), carried out on the CAPES journal portal, using the Systematic Search Flow (SSF) as a methodological procedure. The results point to four main thematic areas of research developed: disposal behavior, textile recycling, practices associated with post-consumer textile waste and post-consumer textile waste management system implemented on a large scale. From the mapping, an imbalance was identified between the number of publications corresponding to the categorized themes, making it possible to observe that research is still mostly positioned at the stage of understanding the problem, which reflects the scarcity of studies that address practical alternatives for management of post-consumer textile waste