Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:
A new study from the University of California at Santa Barbara has found that synthetic clothes released about 4,000 metric tons of plastic microfibers into California's environment in 2019.
For context, that's about 80 million plastic rubber ducks in California, or 130,000 times as many stars as there are in the Milky Way galaxy, The Guardian reported. The Guardian received exclusive access to this study, although it has not been peer-reviewed or published.
These microfibers, smaller than five millimeters, are shed when synthetic clothes are washed, including "yoga pants, stretchy jeans and fleece jackets" the Guardian reported.
To determine how many microfibers are shed in a given year, researchers calculated how many synthetic materials consumers bought with how many loads of laundry people did. The data also calculated how many microfibers were released in each wash. Researchers combined those numbers with public data on sludge and wastewater management in California to reach 4,000 metric tons. These microfibers then make their way into the state's water and land, The Guardian reported.
