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Domestic laundry and microfiber pollution: Exploring fiber shedding from consumer apparel textiles
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 7, p e0250346 (2021)
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Synthetic fibers are increasingly seen to dominate microplastic pollution profiles in aquatic environments, with evidence pointing to textiles as a potentially important source. However, the loss of microfibers from textiles during laundry is poorly understood. We evaluated microfiber release from a variety of synthetic and natural consumer apparel textile samples (n = 37), with different material types, constructions, and treatments during five consecutive domestic laundry cycles. Microfiber loss ranged from 9.6 mg to 1,240 mg kg-1 of textile per wash, or an estimated 8,809 to > 6,877,000 microfibers. Mechanically-treated polyester samples, dominated by fleeces and jerseys, released six times more microfibers (161 ± 173 mg kg-1 per wash) than did nylon samples with woven construction and filamentous yarns (27 ± 14 mg kg-1 per wash). Fiber shedding was positively correlated with fabric thickness for nylon and polyester. Interestingly, cotton and wool textiles also shed large amounts of microfibers (165 ± 44 mg kg-1 per wash). The similarity between the average width of textile fibers here (12.4 ± 4.5 μm) and those found in ocean samples provides support for the notion that home laundry is an important source of microfiber pollution. Evaluation of two marketed laundry lint traps provided insight into intervention options for the home, with retention of up to 90% for polyester fibers and 46% for nylon fibers. Our observation of a > 850-fold difference in the number of microfibers lost between low and high shedding textiles illustrates the strong potential for intervention, including more sustainable clothing design.
- Subjects :
- business.product_category
Textile
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Laundry
Physiology
Polymers
Microplastics
Marine and Aquatic Sciences
Cotton
010501 environmental sciences
Molting
Wastewater
01 natural sciences
Fiber
Materials
Flowering Plants
Multidisciplinary
Textiles
Eukaryota
Agriculture
Plants
Pulp and paper industry
Polyester
Fibers
Chemistry
Macromolecules
Wool
Physical Sciences
Medicine
Plastics
Research Article
Science
Polyesters
Materials Science
Crops
Microfiber
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Laundering
business.industry
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Organisms
Biology and Life Sciences
Fiber Crops
Aquatic Environments
Polymer Chemistry
Nylons
Synthetic fiber
Earth Sciences
Environmental science
business
Physiological Processes
Crop Science
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 16
- Issue :
- 7
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....d0b46e195fb6a1e42ce51bd028b2950b