Your Washing Machine Sheds Up to 18 Million Microfibers a Load

0:00In an earlier episode this week on Monday, I interviewed Dr. Anja Brighton from the Oshik Conservancy. She deals with microfibers. And she was here to tell us in one of the biggest stats that came out of that that really stuck with me was the fact that one laundry can shed anywhere from a few hundred thousands microfibers to 18 million microfibers. Each one of them are a hundred times thinner than a human hair. Now we're gonna follow these microfibers on their actual journey from your washing machine all the way through the wastewater treatment plan and everything and back onto your body. And along the way we're gonna answer the question that Monday's interview left open. Has anyone actually fixed this yet? And that's what we're gonna talk about on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. This is where we talk all things oceans, whether it's ocean news, ocean science, ocean conservation, ways that we can help. And find out how not only us as individuals can help but countries can help by enacting policies and regulations that really help. We're gonna talk about one of those countries that are helping in that. So we're gonna talk all about that.

1:00So let's get into it. Now one of the things that you don't necessarily realize is like fibers shed constantly on your clothes. When your clothes that were made, they're worn, especially when they're washed. So hot water, heavy agitation, like a washing cycle and soap actually make it worse. And we're gonna talk about why. We weren't able to get totally into it with the interview that we did with Ony because we were talking about so many things within the microfibers. We're gonna talk about why on this episode. So agitation is the strongest, best documented cause of fibers like getting off the shirt and going into the water supply. So fibers rub against other fibers, the fabric weave and then drum itself which wears down fiber ends and works trans loose, similar to a rope fraying at a point of repeated friction. One study found that a mechanical laundry bar increased shedding by 10 to 60% depending on the fabric and top loading machines which use essential agitator have measured up to seven times more fiber release than front loaders which just tumbled.

2:01That I did not know. Like before I did this research, I had no clue that there was a difference in terms of how good it is for the clothes and what's shedding by just going from a top down into a front load laundry machine, right? Now some things that look at it, like a full load can shed less per item than a half empty one. So because more fabric on fabric content is actually less damaging than items tumbling loosely with excess water. So if you think about it, a bigger load of laundry is much better at losing less microfibers than it is if you just did like a half load. So sometimes when we put in quick loads here and there, those aren't as good as to keep the fibers on or in terms of microfiber shedding. Now hot water also matters, but the mechanism is a bit of softer signs. The working explanation is that the heat loosens the bonds holding the fibers to the fabric surface. So making them more mobile and more likely to break free under the same type of agitation. So one study found nylon is more sensitive to temperatures

3:02while cotton is more sensitive to wash duration. So heat's effect isn't uniform across fabric types. It's not like a settled fact, but it is like the leading explanation. Now detergent is the merkeous factor. So studies actually disagree on whether soap alone increases or decreases or does nothing to shedding. What's more consistent is that detergent combined with wash duration has a single strongest effect of any combination tested. So meaning the soap's role may be less about attacking the fiber directly and more about extending how long the fabric sits in an abrasive wash environment. So there are a wide range of fiber counts across studies. So like, you know, when I said at the beginning, a few hundred thousand to 18 million range, those obviously it's a wide ranging. So it comes down to really depending on the way the tests are done. So they're very inconsistent across tests. Like it's not always the same method. Since researchers aren't always measuring the same particle size or load condition. So all these different conditions, when you have three factors like the soap, the agitation, the heat of the water,

4:04that's going to cause different types of changes, especially when you have different types of fiber counts. So it should be standardized in certain ways, but it's difficult to do so because clothes are made of different materials and different fiber counts. That makes it a little more difficult. So I don't know if they have categories of them, but that would help a lot more. Now, but here's where we can make better, right? If you don't have a filter on your washing machine that actually catches the fibers, the fibers flow straight into the wastewater, ahead for the treatment plant. So that's what happens when you have a washer, right? All that water that goes out of the wash when you do the rinse cycle, before you do the rinse cycle, it goes right into your treatment water. So it'll go to your treatment plant if you have that infrastructure in your country, or in your area. And so like the overall municipal wastewater infrastructure is estimated to capture only about 40% of microfibers passing through it. So if you don't have a filter, all your microfibers going in, it only catch 40%. It's an estimate, but only about 40%. And it's also like the captured fibers end up,

5:06not just like the ones that are captured doesn't necessarily get out of the system. They end up in bio solids, which often gets spread on farmland and as fertilizer. So it's not removing the microplastics, right? It's actually putting it into like on a field. So it's going back into the system, just relocating them to be honest, which is weird. It's a weird thing to think about. It gets caught into these filters, and then there's all this like bio solids that get clumped up within there. And it's really hard to remove. You're not going to go through bio solids. That's disgusting. You're going to put it back on the farmland for those who have those types of programs, right? It's pretty gross. It's pretty gross. Now one university, I think it's the University of New Mexico had a placenta study that broke results down by plastic type. And the biggest single type was polyethylene at 54%. That's not actually a textile fiber, but the polyethylene is mostly like packaging. So it's bags, bottles, films. So that portion is most likely tied to like general plastic exposure, then laundry, specific, but it's still a pretty big percentage.

6:06Now the part of the placenta say that does connect to the microfibers, directly is the nylon fraction. Now roughly 10% is connected. So this nylon is one of the textile plastics that onion name in our interview on Monday. And so the study is real evidence, like microplastics broadly reach unborn babies. You know, not just the fact that it's just on clothes. It's actually reaching people who are developing, like children who are developing fetuses, who are developing, right? And at 2023 study, tested actual textile microplastic fibers, like nylon 66 and polyester like PET. And the same two plastics that onion described that are on our clothes. So nylon fibers specifically were found to disrupt like how airway cells develop. So you're a soft August and so forth. And affect that research is like is the most concerning for young children with developing lungs and people with existing lung disease. Now some of the older data in 1998 study, examined 114 human lung tissue samples found inhaled fibers, including polyester

7:08and copper type fibers. In 80%, it didn't pin like the source to textile specifically over the other sources, but it's like some of the most of the earliest direct evidence that fibers shaped plastics accumulate in human lungs at all. So the fact is that we are seeing fibers in our lungs. We are seeing it in our ways. We know that it's disrupting the way we develop as human beings and when we're developing children in the womb. It's kind of showing that like microplastics are usually good at lodging in tissue once ingested or inhaled. And they're so small, they're smaller than human hair. You gotta remember that. So it's very difficult. I mean, think about it. When you have hair stuck in your mouth and you just feel it and you're always feeling it and you're always feeling it and you're like, well, hold on a second, that's not right. But then imagine you're not even feeling it. And it goes in, you can cast a hair for the most part, but then you may not feel it all the time if it's smaller than a hair. Now one cool thing is that France did pass the world's first law requiring microfiber filters on new washing machines, effective January 2025.

8:09So it's just been implemented over the last year and maybe a little over a year and a half. Here's the catch though, implementation has stalled because the technical definitions needed to enforce it. The filter mesh size, testing standards, they were never published. So there's no measured result yet because the law hasn't even really been operating in practice. So unfortunately, even though it was implemented in 2025, it hasn't actually gone like been actually put in practice. And so that makes it really difficult. And the US hasn't done better. California tried first that with the AB 1628 passed the legislature in 2023 and governor Newsom vetoed it, citing cost concerns. And even though ocean conservancy's own economic analysis put the added cost at just $14 to $20 per machine, the only real opposition came from the appliance manufacturers, trade group, which has since claimed its own testing shows filters catch only 25% of microfibers well below the 90% that we'd say on Monday that I'm excited. Now that's a dispute, right?

9:10I don't know if I trust the appliance manufacturers, the trade group, over ocean conservancy, right? And so I think that's an interesting kind of controversy here where I feel like the ocean conservancy, I have a little bit more trust in them in terms of what's happening. Now there is a live federal bill right now in the US called the Fighting Fibers Act in 2025, introduced by representative Mike Levin in the House and Senator Jeff Merkley in the Senate. It's still sitting in committee and no vote has happened yet and would require filters with a mesh size no greater than 100 micrometers on new machine starting January 1, 2030 with real EPA in Department of Energy and Forcemen. Do I think this is gonna happen anytime soon? Probably not because of the Trump administration that's in power right now, but we're headed in the right direction when it comes to this. This is also the same Senator Merkley who's office A&NIA work for during her Congressional Science Fellowship in the story from her episode. So that's kind of an interesting kind of tie here because Senator Merkley has always been involved

10:13in this type of work. So I think that's pretty cool. Now to be honest, like the fix is cheap, whether it's catching 25 or 90% of the fibers, it takes away the dependence of treatment plants to pick up these microfibers and even then it could be in biosolids, right? So it's cheap, it's popular, it's technically proven in a lab, but every attempt to actually require it in France or the US has either stalled or been vetoed so far. This is where the fight for the campaign is trying to win, where we're trying to go for here and trying to get all the fibers, right? And you can check out the link to that campaign, not say for wash campaign in the show notes. You can check that out right after this episode. Now there are solutions to this. On your name, three types of solutions during the interview, there's a retro fit filter, a mesh bag and a corboll. So the corboll is about $42. It catches roughly 31% of microfibers per load. Very low maintenance, just pull the fibers off

11:13by hand every once in a while. The guppy friend mesh washing bag, it's about $36. Manufacturer claims 79% to 100% capture for whatever's washed inside the bag specifically. Moderate maintenance probably. And then a planet care retrofit filter, which is $76 to $132 plus replacement cartridges every 30 to 60 days, roughly 98% capture, highest maintenance and cost over time. And to be honest though, this is the real tradeoff between convenience and effectiveness, right? There's no single answer. These all depend on how much you want to catch and it's a bit of a mix of an experiment. And I would love to know what you have done. Have you used a microfiber catch device that could help reduce your input of microfibers on it? I haven't had a chance to use one yet. I'm gonna try and use one and put it in the washer to see how it works and see what the maintenance is. But I think it's kind of interesting. If you have the ability to do this and you can kind of prove that it works,

12:14then maybe other people will start using it as well. And eventually I feel like this will be regulated in where we're gonna have microfiber filters on all of these. So the technology exists. It is affordable for most people. And the public does support it. But the policy keeps stalling out everywhere it's tried. So from France's unenforced law to California's veto to a federal bill that is still sitting in committee. But we're not gonna just stop here about this. I'm gonna give you more information for the not safe for Wash in tomorrow's episode. We're gonna go inside Ocean Conservancy's actual campaign, including the AHAM capture rate dispute and where things stand right now for getting this past for real. So we're gonna talk all about that in tomorrow's episode. So don't you miss out. If you hit that follow button so you don't miss it. And of course, thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew though, and have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.