Clothing: Considering environmental issues close to home

Once a driving force behind Japan’s economic growth and a key industry, the textile sector is now referred to as a “declining industry” due to fierce international competition from countries like China and other parts of Asia, as well as a shrinking domestic market. Symbolic news also broke that Unitika (predecessor of Dainippon Spinning), which had supported the textile industry as one of the three major spinning companies, has decided to withdraw from the textile business, bringing down the curtain on its 135-year history. Meanwhile, the textile industry has come under fire for its significant carbon dioxide emissions. To understand the current state of the textile industry, Japan’s efforts to address those issues, and how consumers can contribute to tackling environmental issues moving forward, we spoke with Professor INOUE Mari from the Graduate School of Human Development and Environment. She has been researching textile materials for nearly 40 years and collaborating with industry leaders.

The world’s second most polluting industry

Is the textile and fashion industry environmentally unfriendly?

Inoue: Globally, the textile and fashion industry accounts for 10% of all industries in terms of CO2 emissions, making it the second-largest contributor to environmental pollution in the world after the oil industry. Cotton products, which are natural fibers, require vast amounts of pesticides during cultivation, which contaminate soil quality and pose health risks to both workers and consumers. Additionally, cotton farming demands significant water resources.

Synthetic fibers are made from petroleum, which causes the same problems as environmental pollution from plastic waste and microplastics. The problem is exacerbated by the overproduction of cheap clothing, which is often discarded when trends fade. Since they are buried and do not decompose, they remain in the soil indefinitely. As a result, they remain discarded in some parts of the world, creating a serious problem. We must also remember that behind the large amount of inexpensive clothing being sold, there are workers who are forced to labor under poor and unsafe conditions.

Europe has particularly stringent regulations on textile waste disposal. Laws have been enacted to prohibit companies from discarding excess clothing, and there is a movement among consumers to not buy clothing unless it is recycled. Japan, too, must take urgent action to address these challenges.

Japan’s The Textile Industry’s Vision: A new strategy after 15 years

What is Japan doing to tackle these environmental issues?

Inoue: In 2022, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) formulated the “The Textile Industry’s Vision” (a vision for the textile industry toward 2030) for the first time in 15 years in order to address the current situation of the textile industry. Back when the textile industry was thriving, METI had a dedicated Textile Division that annually formulated strategies, including the “Technology Roadmap for the Textile Industry.“ This roadmap was designed to provide subsidies to support research aimed at solving industry problems.

Specifically, the government is trying to promote the “practical application of fiber-to-fiber recycling technology,” which creates new fibers from discarded fibers, and the “practical application of water-free dyeing processing technology,” which uses as little water as possible in the dyeing process. In addition, as part of the “Construction of Human Interface System for textile designing,” technologies and services aimed at the social implementation of “smart textiles,” meaning smart textiles that can measure heart rate and body temperature, as well as textiles that people find pleasant to the senses in their daily lives, are included in this roadmap.

What kind of research is your research and how does it relate to environmental issues in the textile industry?

Inoue: My research aims to derive the sensory characteristics of textiles from their material properties, such as warmth or coldness when you put on a garment, or whether it feels prickly, smooth, or fluffy when you touch it. We are quantifying people’s sensitivity to the comfort of clothing and textile products, with humans as the interface. In the textile industry, comfort in clothing is captured by the three pillars of texture (the feeling one gets from the feel and appearance of fabrics and textiles), “garment pressure,” which indicates ease or difficulty of movement, and thermal properties of materials such as heat retention, which is the theme of my research.

I enrolled in the Department of Clothing, Faculty of Home Economics, Nara Women’s University, and majored in textiles and clothing materials. Physical properties are measured and quantified by pulling, bending, compressing, and rubbing the surface of cloth with measuring instruments. Additionally, we create “subjective evaluations” based on survey responses regarding the perceived “softness” and “smoothness.” We then analyze this by comparing the data on physical properties with the survey responses.　My mentors at my university and professors at Kyoto University collaborated on research, and by around 1980, they had established the know-how for measurement instruments and objective evaluations, which still form the foundation of our methods today.

We have been conducting joint research in terms of evaluating the texture (feel) of materials not only in the clothing industry but also with companies involved in various products such as automobile seats, instrument panels (interior components installed in front of the driver and passenger seats), nonwoven fabric masks, and sanitary products, etc. We announced in October 2024, with “Yofuku-no-Aoyama. This joint research, which quantified the ease of movement when wearing a suit, is one example of such research.

Let me return to environmental issues in the textile industry. The government is now prioritizing “chemical recycling” as a key initiative. This is a method of recycling by chemically breaking down used resources and converting them into raw materials. This is a technology that melts polyester clothes and plastic bottles and re-draws threads using the melted materials. The resulting products are sold as “recycled polyester.” However, in the case of clothing, 100% polyester is really rare, and it is difficult to recycle as it is because it contains other fibers such as cotton and acrylic. Currently, 60% of the total is disposed of or incinerated, so the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s “The Textile Industry’s Vision“ includes a project called “fiber-to-fiber“ to see if the recycling ratio can be increased a little more. The current theme of the industry is how to establish a technology to recycle the large amount of garments that are being disposed of, and at the same time, how to clear the cost side of the equation. I have been involved in a project with a company to sort out garments.

Another recycling activity at the conference

You are also active in the academic society and am working on environmental issues.

Inoue: Material recycling, such as “Han-mo,” is also important as a way to recycle resources. The Textile Machinery Society of Japan has formed a committee for this purpose. Han-mo is the reuse of fibers that have been skewered and broken apart from rags and discarded fabrics, which are not known what material they contain, and returned to a cotton-like state. This technique has been done conventionally with expensive fibers like wool, but there is a need to apply it to ordinary fabrics, and this team is working on it. Fabrics made with Han-mo are stiffer, grayish, and lack interesting color patterns because the fibers of the material are shorter than the fibers before recycling. In our laboratory, we are in charge of measuring the physical properties of fabrics and evaluating their texture in order to find out how to characterize the unique texture of recycled materials. Our current main theme is to connect the physical evaluation of texture and human sensation that we have been doing to the products that we are trying to address environmental issues.

Dreaming of a systematized textile industry

What kind of research will you pursue in the future?

Inoue: Recently, we have begun research that incorporates brain wave measurements. We are attempting to understand what “feeling good to the touch” means physiologically by observing changes in brain waves. In the future, I would like to capture from the brain waves how people feel when they wear clothes made of a certain material. What happens to the alpha and beta waves in the brain waves when you touch them? What will happen if we add the “measurement of material properties” and “subjective evaluation” that we have been studying, plus the “physiological quantity” of brain waves that we have measured and quantified, and connect the three values? I would like to try to conduct this research while asking for expertise from the physiotherapy professors at other universities.

From our research so far, we know that if we make this yarn into this structure, we can make this cloth, and the characteristics of that cloth will give it this texture. The textile industry is said to have a very long supply chain. One of my dreams for the future is to make the production process more systematic, so that if the recycled yarn has these characteristics, the cloth can be made in this way to produce clothing with this texture. Furthermore, by combining numerical data analyzed from brain waves, such as comfort, we will be able to make a variety of proposals to consumers. I believe that research in this field must be “useful,” and rather than basic research, I would like to focus on research that can actually be used by people. People all over the world wear these clothes every day, so it is important to find ways to make them comfortable for everyone to wear.

It is not just about enduring discomfort for fashion; it’s about achieving both physical comfort and aesthetic appeal. If we can define this through measurable physical properties, people will be able to choose clothes that fit them better.

What is necessary now that we are buying clothes online?

What is required in the age of e-commerce?

Inoue: In an age when more people buy clothes over the Internet than in actual stores, it will be impossible to touch the clothes, so I think it will be important to convey texture in a numerical form. Research on quantifying the texture of cloth had already established a method in 1980, but I believe that we can use the data more in the current era of e-commerce rather than in that era. I feel that there is potential in taking the research that I inherited from my mentor at the university and connecting it to the next generation to further expand its application. E-commerce can expand sales channels overseas, and I think it would be interesting to provide a variety of additional information by quantifying the data. As another one of my dreams, I am hoping that someone might connect with me if I speak out in this way.

You also support students’ SDGs activities.

Inoue: Volunteer researchers from universities in the Kansai region have established a student-centered team called “en-we-cle“ to create new resources from textile waste in 2022. Professors from various universities in the fields of textile, living environment, and design are working together to support the project, which includes creating and selling clothing and household goods using discarded textiles, and holding fashion shows with clothing made from discarded textiles. Kobe University has made a series of efforts to collaborate by measuring data on fabrics to see what material properties are present in waste clothing. In September 2024, we held another event, not only to hold a fashion show, but also to disseminate information and appeal to the public about the issue of textile waste.

Applying the perspectives students learned at the university to the society

How do you want students to learn about environmental issues related to clothing?

Inoue: I want students who, even if they are not directly involved in the clothing industry, to be aware that there are significant environmental issues related to clothing. Many students will be on the side of providing services and products to consumers when they graduate, but I would like them to study environmental issues so that they do not forget the consumer’s viewpoint on the buying side. If you are one of the consumers and are more aware of the environmental problems caused by waste disposal, you will be able to make a difference in your choice of each item itself. As more and more people think about environmental issues in their daily lives, society will gradually change.

In my laboratory, there are many people who do not work in the textile industry, but I hope that they will apply what they learn about environmental issues in this world and connect it to their own world.

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