#microfiberpollution

Have you ever thought about the environmental impact of doing your laundry? Neither had I, until I started researching microfiber pollution. What I’ve learned is that the environmental impact of a load of laundry goes far beyond the issue of microfiber pollution. So let’s learn more: 

Energy Use and Your Carbon Footprint

In most cases, we use electricity to wash and dry our clothing and generating this energy results in the emission of greenhouse gases, namely carbon dioxide (CO2). For each load of laundry we wash and dry, we add approximately 2.4 kg of CO2 to the atmosphere, contributing to our carbon footprint. We can help curb energy used during washing and drying by using energy efficient washing machine and dryers, simply laundering less and avoiding energy intensive tumble-drying. 

Water Waste

About 90% of the energy used during clothes washing is used to heat wash water. By simply washing on colder settings, we can significantly reduce the amount of energy needed during laundering. In fact, we can save enough energy to power the Empire State Building for 444 years! 

Almost a quarter of the water used in the average household goes to laundering clothes. 

Release of Chemicals

When we wash our clothes, we often use detergents, bleach and other chemicals. Our clothing can also contain chemicals, such as stain repellents and pollutants that accumulate on the material over time, that can be released during washing. 

Wear and Tear

Heat, detergent use, and friction from mechanical action during washing and drying can cause damage to our clothing. Overtime, laundering can make the fibers that make up our clothing more brittle and cause microfiber release. In fact, hundreds of thousands of microfibers can be released to the environment every time we run a load of laundry. 

Solutions

Launder your clothes less often. If your clothing isn’t soiled, you can get more than one wear out of it. Laundering can be harsh on your clothing, so extend the life of your clothes by washing less often!

Cool temperatures. In most cases, hotter temperatures doesn’t result in cleaner clothes (click here for more on removing stains) and can damage fabric. Cool temperatures not only help protect our clothing, it also can result in significant energy savings.

Less detergent, fabric softener and/or bleach. These chemicals can end up in the environment after washing. Vary the amount of detergent you use based on how dirty your clothes are (less is more!).

Avoid tumble drying. Opt for line drying when possible. Plus drying outdoors can lead to fresher clothes! 

Do not dry clean. Not only can it be costly, dry cleaning often involves the use of harsh chemicals and can be energy intensive due to increased need for transportation!

Read the label. Clothing labels can tell you the best practices for caring for your clothes. Extending the life of your clothing by protecting it from wear & tear and repairing it is important for preventing textile waste.

Install a filter. Washing machine filters are an easy way to stop microfiber pollution! Check out a recent study from our lab looking at different microfiber capture technologies. 

Got tips or questions for stopping microfiber pollution? Post your comments and questions on my Ask Me About Microfiber Pollution page!

How do scientists analyze microfibers?

Microfibers are tiny synthetic plastic fibers that shed from clothing during laundering. Ever pull out a handful of lint from your dryer? That bundle of lint is actually made up of thousands and thousands of microfibers from your clothes. Microfibers make up over 85% of shoreline debris, according to a 2011 study. But how do scientists study microfibers? Today we’re going to talk about the techniques researchers use to detect and characterize microfibers in the environment! 

Where to look for microfibers. That part is easy. Microfibers have been found in nearly every environmental compartment, including soil, air, household dust, water and even snow! Depending on which compartment a researcher decides to sample will determine their sampling technique or how they plan to collect a portion of the compartment to look for fibers. 

Separate fibers from natural materials and other plastics. Once a sample is collected, the researcher needs to remove the microfibers from other debris (including other plastics). Often times to remove synthetic (man-made) materials from natural materials, a density separation can be used. For example, the sample is placed in a solution of a particular density and allowed to sit overnight. After time more dense materials, like soils, metals and woody debris, sink, while materials that are less dense, like plastics, float. Manually picking out particles that appear to be plastic may also be an option, though some particles can be too small to pick up or even see with the naked eye. Once the natural material is removed, plastics can be sorted by size (using filters and sieves of different size categories) and by category. Plastics are most often categorized as fragment, fiber, film, foam, and sphere. 

Determine type of fiber. What a particle is made of can tell us about it’s source and identifying sources can lead to solutions! Microfibers can be made of natural materials, including cotton and silk, or synthetic materials, including polyester and nylon. Determining chemical composition is not that easy and often requires expensive equipment. Marine debris researchers most often use spectroscopic techniques, including Raman and/or FT-IR spectroscopy, to identify a material’s chemical make-up. These techniques detect how a material interacts with light on a molecular level and generates a chemical fingerprint that can be used to identify the type of material. 

Got questions? Ask me about microfiber pollution here!

What is microfiber pollution? 

During every wash small plastic fibers shed our clothing and wash down the drain into waterways and the oceans, where they attract toxic chemicals and are ingested by wildlife. 

Today we’re talking solutions! 

The GUPPYFRIEND Washing Bag is a laundry bag that protects clothing from normal wear and tear, while trapping fibers that come lose during washing. How does it work? It’s easy! Simply place your clothing in the GUPPYFRIEND bag and toss in the wash. Once finished, remove wet garments and dispose of any remaining fibers and lint into a trash can. Although this solution won’t solve the microfiber pollution issue, it’s a great first step and helps give individuals a practical way of mitigating fiber loss at home. Get yours today! 

The creators of the GUPPYFRIEND Washing Bag have teamed up with STOP! MICRO WASTE, an organization working to raise awareness about microfiber pollution. Check them out and learn more about other steps you can take at home to reduce fiber loss!

Once when I was explaining my research on microfibers to a friend, they commented, “Oh, you must live and breathe this stuff”. I laughed and said, “Actually, maybe we all do!”

Microfibers are common in household dust and air! In fact, up to one-third of urban dust fallout is composed of microplastics (most of these are microfibers). I can see fibers in the dust on the keys of my keyboard as I type right now. Researchers believe people may be at risk of inhalation of microfibers and/or ingestion of food contaminated with microfibers (during cooking or eating). The effects of microfiber ingestion on human health still remains unknown. 

“There is a possibility, a real possibility, that some of those micro[fibers] will be entrained into the air, and they will be carried around and we will end up breathing them.” 

- Frank Kelly, a professor of environmental health at King’s College London  

Microfibers have been found nearly everywhere, including the seafood we eat. A recent study by Catarino, et al. (2018) counted the number of microplastics in mussels being sold at market and predicted the number of microplastics that the average seafood eater may consume (123-4,620 particles per year). They then found this value was dwarfed by the number of microfibers a person may be ingesting to through household dust during a meal (13,731-68,415 particles per year). The study found humans may eat as many as 114 microfibers with every meal. 

Investigating where microfibers are in the environment and the amount of microfibers we may be exposed to is important for understanding the effects of microfiber ingestion/inhalation on human health.

California legislation will require polyester clothing to have a microfiber pollution label