Recycling of bast textile wastes into high value-added products: a review

The textile industry contributes to about 5% of all waste globally, with approximately 20 billion pounds of waste landfilled every year, calling for advanced recycling methods in the context of the circular economy. Here, we review physical and chemical methods for recycling textiles waste into high value-added products such as composite reinforcements, soil covering materials, adsorbents, electrodes, supercapacitors, and nanocrystalline cellulose. Chemical recycling is more frequent than physical recycling. Product quality depends on the recycling methods; for instance chemical recycling yield materials with better porous characteristics and higher adsorption capacity than materials obtained by physical recycling. Intelligent wearables and technologies for advanced textile processing are discussed.