Synthetic clothing washed at home dumps vast quantities of harmful microplastics into the ocean every year. There are growing signs it could damage life big and small.
New research from a Vancouver laboratory has found setting your washing machine to its gentle wash cycle can lower the shedding of microscopic plastic particles by 70 per cent.
Microplastics everywhere Scientists have documented zooplankton that consume microplastics in the ocean have their growth disrupted. That's a major concern for an animal that forms a vital base for the marine food web. In a first-of-its-kind study last year, researchers from the United Kingdom’s University of Hull found ingesting or inhaling high levels of microplastics in contaminated drinking water, seafood and salt may lead to cell death and allergic reactions. Further research into how the body excretes the plastics is required to understand the true level of risk, noted the authors.
In all the machines — including on soon-to-be-released Samsung washers with microfibre lint filters and newly programmed wash conditions — lower peak wash speeds and lower operating rates tended to have the biggest impact on reducing the number of microplastics shed into the environment. Long-term, Cox says the hope is to create a regulatory standard that could accompany Canada’s recent move to ban six kinds of single-use plastics by 2023, including straws, checkout bags, cutlery, hard-to-recycle food containers, ring carriers and stir sticks.
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