Because of the alarming level of Green House Gases (GHG) in the environment, fast-depleting natural resources such as water, petroleum products, and increasing level of industrial effluents, every single manufacturing activity has come under the scrutiny of sustainability. Textile materials form a large chunk of human consumption, and as the standard of living is improving globally, the per capita consumption of textiles and apparel is also increasing. Against this backdrop, the affluent segment of the society is adopting the “make- use-and-throw” approach, giving rise to large-scale manufacturing on the one hand and the pressure of disposing of the used clothing on the other. The researchers in the field of sustainability are thus talking about responsible consumption and recycling of used materials. By refurbishing such used apparels by involving minimum processing and value addition technique, it is possible that such products can be put into useful purpose once again. The present research work addresses this issue of converting once used clothing by refurbishing and value addition. In developing countries, many food grains are spoiled and left to germinate due to improper storage conditions and their dampening. Hence, another research explores the possibility of extracting the starches from the waste products such as germinated food grains and investigates its applicability as a thickener in textile printing. This attempt has the dual purpose of waste utilization and value addition to the once used textile garments. Hence, this attempt also advocates sustainability in manufacturing by reducing the overall carbon footprints considerably.

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M. D. Teli, S. P. Valia, S. Maurya and P. Shitole, “Sustainability based upcycling and value addition of textile apparels,” International Journal of Applied and Physical Sciences, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 55-60, 2015.