Towards A Circular Textile Industry: A Systematic Literature Review of Textile Waste Management Across Lifecycle Stages and Stakeholder Levels

Despite growing climate concerns, the textile industry centred on largely unsustainable practices, renewing products seasonally that encourage overconsumption and expand landfills. Existing research reveals a fragmented landscape with multi-level challenges in implementing innovative and sustainable solutions for effective textile waste management systems. This systematic literature review aims to assess existing insights on textile waste management strategies that could aid to build a more integrated landscape, by using the Lifecycle Assessment framework combined with a multi-level perspective (macro-, meso-, and micro-level). Guided by PRISMA 2020, 94 high-quality and peer-reviewed studies are analysed to enrich the growing global scholarly engagement on textile waste management. This research maps innovative recycling technologies, systemic frameworks, and sustainable processes to comprehensively assess how to achieve a holistic textile waste management system. The review offers a wide range of insights for future research directions across multi-level perspectives, thereby also enabling sustainability interventions by relevant stakeholders. This study thus contributes a consolidated and an updated knowledgebase to support researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in advancing system-wide circularity in the textile industry, contributing to the achievement of relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals.