Sustainability in Regenerated Textile Fibers

One of the biggest threats to living species is environmental damage and consequent global warming. Industrialization in every field is responsible for these issues. We know that the textile industry is a gigantic industry and a huge polluter. Fiber is the basic raw material for textiles, it is necessary to initiate utilization of sustainable materials to produce sustainable textiles which reduce the environmental burdens. Most of the natural fibers having better properties toward the comfort characteristics, resulting in the huge demand which directly increasing the environmental threats. For example, cotton is the world’s most popular natural fiber, accounting for 80% of all-natural fibers used, but the cultivation of cotton is a thorough environmental and health disaster which is almost unbelievable. But all of these environmental and health hazards can be taken care of by the cultivation of organic cotton and perhaps organic cotton alone couldn’t replace the cotton. Therefore, it is necessary to find some alternatives; however, it should be in a sustainable manner. Based on these facts, we briefly describe in this chapter about sustainability in the regenerated fibers which include the cellulose and protein and their recent developments. This chapter deals with various sustainable regenerated fibers used in textiles namely lyocell, bamboo viscose, modal, seacell®, smartcell®, and sustainable protein fibers.