Abstract:
Cotton denim jeans are widely known to be
among the dirtiest textiles available in the market. Denim
jeans consume a significant amount of water, chemicals,
and energy during their entire existence, from
cultivation to disposal. This literature review examines
the environmental impacts of denim production across
four important phases: cotton cultivation, raw material
processing, finishing, and disposal using conventional
and organic methods. The environmental impact is
classified into four areas using the life cycle assessment
software openLCA 2.0.2. The four impact categories are:
global warming, water consumption, freshwater
ecotoxicity, and ozone formation in terrestrial
ecosystems. Cotton cultivation makes use of a
disproportionate number of chemicals (around 25
percent of the world's insecticides). Denim fabric
manufacturing consumes 34, 38, 23, and 5 percent of
total energy throughout the spinning, chemical process,
weaving phase, and other operations, respectively.
Besides, consumer use phase is the most resource
consumed phase. People frequently discard or burn
clothes, contributing to vast amounts of waste and
harming the environment by emitting greenhouse gases.
Cotton cultivation and conventional raw material
processing produce the highest greenhouse emissions
and use the most energy. Organic approaches emit 12
percent fewer emissions than conventional approaches.
The conventional approach has a bigger environmental
impact.
