Environmental impacts minimization of mixed textile waste recycling process through life cycle assessment

The global textile industry is facing an unprecedented sustainability crisis, driven by a linear production model and a surge in post-consumer waste. While most recycling research focuses on pure, pre-consumer fiber streams, the present study provides an original contribution by addressing the complex challenge of unsorted municipal textile waste. Characterized by high heterogeneity and poor structural quality, such a fraction is currently largely destined for incineration. Assessing the environmental feasibility of transforming this degraded waste into recycled nonwoven fabrics for industrial applications, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was conducted using a waste-to-cradle perspective, grounded in primary inventory data from a laboratory-scale mechanical recycling pilot. Core novelty resides in the focus on unsorted textile fractions—typically excluded from high-value circular loops—and the introduction of an evaluative framework to quantify the environmental “break-even point” compared to incineration. Delivering an in-depth analysis at the experimental stage identifies critical hotspots, such as electricity consumption in defibration and aspiration, allowing for targeted process optimization. Although laboratory-scale recycling already demonstrates superior performance to incineration in terms of Global Warming Potential (GWP), upscaling-oriented sensitivity analysis reveals a significant paradigm shift. Transitioning to an industrial scale powered by renewable energy achieves impact reductions of over 60%, effectively transforming GWP-total into a net avoided impact. Ultimately, bridging the gap between bench-scale findings and industrial potential proves that mechanical recycling, when integrated with energy decarbonization, is a critical lever for achieving European circular economy and climate neutrality objectives.