Natural fibers have emerged as sustainable alternatives to synthetic materials in textile applications due to their biodegradability, renewability, and diverse functional properties.

This review explores nanocellulose and biopolymers as sustainable solutions for removing microplastics from wastewater, highlighting their efficiency, limitations, and the need for their integration with treatment systems and supportive regulations.

The textile industry consumes substantial amounts of water and energy during processing and is a major source of environmental pollution. To assess the current situation in the world's second-largest textile-producing country, i.e., Bangladesh, this study collected water and energy consumption data as well as key water-quality parameters—pH, biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), temperature, total dissolved solids (TDS), dissolved oxygen (DO), and total suspended solids (TSS)—from 14 textile factories located in Gazipur, Savar, Dhamrai (Dhaka), Narayanganj, and Chittagong. In April 2025, the recorded water consumption ranged from 200 to 68 007 m³ and the electricity consumption from 100 to 866 692 kWh. The solar energy usage values recorded in selected factories ranged from 5 to 11 000 kWh per month. The effluent at the outlet of textile effluent treatment plants (ETPs) showed pH = 7.1–8.1, BOD = 9–57 mg L⁻¹, COD = 15–210 mg L⁻¹, temperature = 21.8–34 °C, TDS = 340–1920 mg L⁻¹, DO = 2.1–6.5 mg L⁻¹, and TSS = 10–97 mg L⁻¹, which were compared with the Bangladesh Department of Environment (DoE) standards. The study further examines the environmental, economic, and health implications of untreated or inadequately treated effluents, providing critical insights for policymakers to design effective pollution control measures and promote sustainable textile production practices.

3D printing technology has made significant strides in smart textiles—fabrics embedded with electronics like conductive fibers and sensors—now widely applied in areas such as health con-dition monitoring, wearable energy-harvesting devices, and interactive textiles that respond to environmental conditions and color changes. Different 3D printing methods, such as Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Direct Ink Writing (DIW), and PolyJet printing, are used in the fabrication of smart textiles. This study provides a detailed, applica-tion-specific overview of 3D printing technologies—such as FDM, SLS, DIW, and PolyJet print-ing—and their use in smart textiles across various sectors, including wearable technology, medical textiles, and smart fashion design. We gathered articles and reports from Scopus and Google Scholar, providing a concise assessment of 3D printing materials for smart textiles to give readers a quick understanding of the field. The timeline of 3D printing’s use in smart textiles, from 2016 to 2023, highlights significant advancements in various additive manufacturing techniques applied to smart textiles. The review emphasizes the importance of understanding 3D printing techniques such as FDM, SLS, DIW, and PolyJet, as their applicability for selecting the best approach to in-corporating advanced functionalities into smart textiles.

In recent times, there has been a discernible focus on the development of environmentally friendly and sustainable biomaterials obtained from renewable sources. Scientists are now investigating the prospective applications of nanocellulose, a biocompatible substance derived from natural cellulose. The aforementioned substance exhibits notable characteristics, such as a substantial surface area to volume ratio, with its compatibility with biological systems and capacity to undergo degradation. Nanocellulose has the capability to undergo transformation into nanofibers and nanocrystals, so enabling the generation of diverse structures, including elongated nanofibers, suspensions, and films. In the textile industry, there is a growing need to adopt sustainable techniques in order to address and minimize the negative environmental impacts. The current focus is on the advancement of environmentally sustainable alternatives in the realm of textile production, namely cellulose-based materials. These textiles are being created using processes that aim to minimize water pollution. In addition, recent advancements in dyeing methods have used nanocellulose to effectively reduce water consumption and eliminate the need for toxic materials. Nanocellulose nanocomposites, such as nanofibrillated celluloses (NFCs) and cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), are increasingly used as fillers in textile nanocomposites to enhance their mechanical characteristics due to their cost-effectiveness and recyclability. The advancements achieved in the field of nanocellulose-based materials and technology exhibit considerable promise in the development of ecologically friendly solutions across several industries.