DOI: 10.1002/tqem.21538 RESEARCH ARTICLE A review of textile industry: Wet processing, environmental impacts, and effluent treatment methods Sughosh Madhav 1 Arif Ahamad 1 Pardeep Singh 2 Pradeep Kumar Mishra 3 1 School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India 2 P.G.D.A.V. College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India 3 Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi, India Correspondence Sughosh Madhav, School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 110067, India. Email: sughosh.madhav@gmail.com Abstract The word “textile” means to weave and was taken from the Latin word “texere.” Nowadays, textiles not only fulfill humankind's basic necessity for clothing, they also allow individuals to make fashion statements. As one of the oldest industries, the textile industry occupies a unique place in India. It is responsible for 14% of the total industrial manufacture in India. However, the textile indus- try is also considered to be one of the biggest threats to the environment. Pretreatment, dyeing, printing, and finishing operations are among the various stages of the industrial textile manufac- turing process. These fabrication operations not only utilize huge quantities of power and water, they also generate considerable amounts of waste. The textile industry utilizes a number of dyes, chemicals, and other materials to impart the required qualities to the fabrics. These operations produce a significant amount of effluents. The quality of effluents is such that they cannot be put to other uses, and they can create environmental problems if they are disposed of without appropri- ate treatment. This review discusses different textile processing stages, pollution problems asso- ciated with these stages, and their eco-friendly alternatives. Textile wet processing is described in detail, as it is the key process in the industry and it also generates the greatest amount of pollutants in textile processing. The environmental impact of textile effluents is discussed, as textile effluents not only impose negative effects on the quality of water and soil, they also imperil plant and ani- mal health. In this paper, various methods for treating textile effluents are described. Discussion of physical, chemical, biological, and advanced treatment technologies of effluent treatment are included in this paper. KEYWORDS remediation, textile effluents, textile industry, wet processing 1 INTRODUCTION Textiles rank second—after food—among the substantial desires of human life. The textile industry alters fibers into yarn, transforms the yarn into fabrics or allied commodities, and dye and finish these mate- rials through diverse operations of production. Numerous dyes, chem- icals, auxiliary chemicals, and sizing materials are used during wet processing in the textile industry. This results in the generation of wastewater that may pose environmental problems. Hence, the wastewater produced during wet processing needs to be thoroughly treated before it is released to the environment (Ghaly, Anan- thashankar, Alhattab, & Ramakrishnan, 2014; Kamal, Ahmed, Hassan, Uddin, & Hossain, 2016). The composition effluents of textile efflu- ents are extremely heterogeneous. Effluents comprise large quanti- ties of toxic and difficult to treat substances derived from the dyeing and finishing processes. (Al-Kdasi, Idris, Saed, & Guan, 2004; Sabur, Khan, & Safiullah, 2012). The most pertinent problem of textile indus- try wastewater is the use of dye to impart color (Qadir & Chhipa, 2015). Effluents contain a wide range of contaminants, including sur- factants, salts, heavy metals, enzymes, oxidizing, and reducing agents (Badani, Ait-Amar, Si-Salah, Brik, & Fuchs, 2005; Jo, Park, Cho, Kim, & Jung, 2008). The quality of both surface water and groundwater in the vicinity of textile facilities is degraded over time due to the release of highly polluted effluents (Carnerio et al., 2010; Prabha, Kumar, Kumar, Das, & Ramanathan, 2013). The release of untreated effluents from the application of destructive, dangerous, and per- sistent chemicals in wet processing is detrimental to the environ- ment. In developing countries, textile operations are performed by small-scale operations, which lack the requisite resources to treat their wastes, which lead to environmental pollution and environmen- tal degradation (Sarayu & Sandhya, 2012; Saxena, Raja, & Arputharaj, 2017). Environ Qual Manage. 2018;27:31–41. c  2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 31 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tqem