Sustainability in Textile Design with Laser Technology

Abstract

The textile and fashion industry is one of the oldest and largest industries in the world, and sustainability, which is important in all sectors, is also very important for textile and fashion sector. Nowadays, unfortunately, the textile industry has become one of the sectors that may cause noteworthy environmental damages. The culture of rapid consumption causes depletion of the limited resources in nature and has negative effects on ecosystem. Due to the current world order, resources are rapidly depleting, nature is being destroyed, human health is gradually deteriorating, and therefore many undesirable economic, ecological, and social problem occurrences are on the rise. One of the challenges faced by designers in the textile sector is to provide ecological production solutions while meeting the consumer demands. Finishing processes are generally applied to textile materials to provide the desired appearance and comfort features. However, the high amount of wastewater generation during the application of these finishing techniques and the excessive amount of water and energy consumption lead to environmentally unfriendly processing types. In order to solve this increasing problem in the sector, sustainable materials and production methods should be used and preferred. Therefore, replacement of harmful chemicals with environmentally friendly substances, wastewater reduction, and creation of new design and production processes are of great importance. In particular, alternative methods for the textile finishing processes applied for the creation of new and different designs are being developed. Laser technologies, which are one of these methods, provide both economic and ecological production types. Cutting, engraving, fading, marking, modification, pre-modification, and design are some of the examples of laser technology applications in the textile industry. In this chapter, the contribution of laser technology, as a dry and clean method, to sustainable textile production and design is reviewed in detail.