Release of synthetic microplastic plastic fibres from domestic washing machines: effects of fabric type and washing conditions
Napper IE, Thompson RC (2016). Marine Pollution Bulletin.
What they found
Polyester-cotton blend shed significantly fewer fibres than polyester or acrylic, with effects of temperature, detergent and conditioner interacting in complex ways. The authors estimate an average 6 kg wash of acrylic could release over 700,000 fibres.
- Sample
- Polyester, polyester-cotton and acrylic fabrics washed under different conditions
- What it can't tell you
- Fabric swatches in a domestic machine, not whole garments over a lifetime. The 700,000 figure is scaled up from swatches. Fibres were counted from effluent filtered at a set mesh; smaller fibres were missed. Environmental release, not human exposure.
- Funding
- Not checked (full text inaccessible).
- Topics
- Clothing, Environment
- Checked against
- Abstract (Europe PMC, PMID 27686821)