3 Ways to Reduce Micro-plastic Pollution from your Clothing

How much plastic in the sea comes from our clothing?

By: Zoey Pham

From the high street to haute couture, fashion is an industry worth of billions of dollars, and it also comes with a hefty environmental price tag.

Cotton production depletes water sources and contaminates the ecological system with pesticides. Chemical waste from clothes manufacturing has devastated rivers in Asia. In addition to that, a number of research projects found that the fashion industry is on course to create a quarter of estimated global carbon emissions by 2050.

There is another looming threat from this industry, one of minute size but a massive effect– the problem of microplastics from our clothing. Synthetic materials such as polyester, nylon, and acrylic are made of plastic fibers. These degrade and break apart from the fabric in a washing machine cycle. A weekend load of laundry washed with a domestic washing machine could release up to 700,000 fibers into the waterways. Some of this will be intercepted and filtered out during the wastewater treatment process, but a good amount will escape into the environment. In the years between 2000 and 2016, the use of polyester by the global garment industry increased from 8.3 to 21.3 million tons annually.

Current published studies have shown concerning trends in the level of the pervasiveness and environmental contamination of microplastics in our ecological system. There is much to investigate about the long-term adverse effects of these plastics in the food chain. Nevertheless, we can all take some actions to reduce the environmental impacts of our laundry loads. Here are some things you can do:

1) Choose clothes made from eco-friendly materials

When possible, choose eco-friendly materials such as organic hemp, organic linen, recycled cotton, recycled wool, or the next best options like organic cotton or Tencel.

2) If you do choose a synthetic material, opt for a tightly woven one

For some types of clothing, like swimwear and rainproof outerwear, synthetic material is indeed more practical. Garments with a very compact woven structure and highly twisted yarns made of continuous filaments release less microfiber to the air and in the wash compared with those with a looser structure such as knitted or yarn-twisted.

3.) Use a specialized washing machine filter.

The LINT Luv-R is a filter that attaches to the washing machine outflow, and a Guppy bag is a self-cleaning fabric bag made of a specially designed micro-filter material that you wash your clothes in. These products work to reduce the microfiber releases to a considerable degree.