An innovative design method for sustainable fast fashion

• Main Author: See, Jerome Jie Rong
• Other Authors: Moon Seung Ki
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/139130
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Today, sneaker consumption is at an all-time high. People are purchasing three pairs a year on average in the United States. To meet this demand, roughly 23 billion shoes are produced each year mostly in factories across China and Southeast Asia. This attributed to fast fashion becoming the second most polluting industry after the oil industry and the environmental impacts have grown significantly. The first tangible impact is textile waste taking up an estimated 5% of landfill space worldwide. Secondly, it produces a large amount of greenhouses gases and utilizes huge amounts of energy, chemicals and water. Other indirect sources are trucking and transport, metal smelting, leather tanning, fabric dying etc. Hence, to curb the issue, several sustainable methods have been introduced in the apparel industry recently. For clothing, companies have been intercepting plastic waste and turn them into usable threads. For shoes, eco-friendly materials and additive manufacturing, which is the focus of the project, can be an alternative replacement with EVA foams. Additive manufacturing has been introduced in various industries and used extensively. The activities vary from prototyping to manufacturing as they eliminate the existence of mould and able to produce parts of unique shape with precise measurement. Additive manufacturing that uses liquid-based resin has been gaining popularity and adopted in the apparel industry. One such method is Digital Light Synthesis by Carbon, which will be the second focus in this project.