Sources and Fates of Textile Solid Wastes and Their Sustainable Management

Textile industry, one of the biggest and most complicated polluting industries in the world, produces textiles and apparels, contributing to depletion of water, energy, and other natural resources and releases both liquid and solid wastes. Although there are several established strategies to treat the textile effluent (liquid waste), treatment of textile solid waste (especially textile sludge) is still highly challenging. As a result, these industries cause a great threat to environmental sustainability and the ecosystem. In these regards, there is no alternative to developing a more suitable method to treat textile solid waste to meet the human needs but still reducing the load of textile waste into the environment and, thereby, maintaining an ecofriendly behavior. This chapter incorporates the sources, qualification, and quantification of textile solid waste and their sustainable and reasonable management approaches. The main focus is given on the textile sludge and the strategies to decontaminate it. Designing products by using textile solid waste for socio-economic and ecological well-being is also discussed.