Transforming fashion and textile waste into resources through SME innovation, community engagement and sustainability education

The fashion and textile sector is a major contributor to global environmental degradation, including waste generation, greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and marine microplastic contamination. Yet, it also offers strong opportunities to transform waste into valuable resources through circular economy strategies. This mini-review integrates insights from education-focused discussions, community-based initiatives, and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) practices to develop a unified perspective on reimagining waste as a resource in the fashion and textile sector. It highlights the roles of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), 3Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle) solutions, and SME-led innovation in advancing circularity, using a qualitative approach that combines synthesis with case-based analysis. The findings demonstrate that coordinated efforts across education, communities, and businesses can reduce waste, create high-value products, and contribute meaningfully to circularity. By focusing on “from waste to resources,” this review offers a novel perspective on circularity for sustainability, identifies research gaps, and informs potential integration in the textile and fashion business, circular economy research, and applications of ESD.