Did you know that between a quarter and a third of the microplastics found in the environment come from the domestic washing of clothes? Although water treatment plants would eliminate 98% of them, the reuse of sludge in agriculture would be responsible for a part of the introduction of these harmful clothing by-products into the environment.
The scientific community is already addressing this issue. For example, researchers at the University of Toronto published in a recent issue of the journal Frontiers in Marine Science the results of a study that found that 85% of microplastics from laundry were blocked by the use of washer filters.
Closer to home, in a study involving 20 households in Verdun (Montreal) using such filters, Dominique Claveau-Mallet is analyzing samples of microplastics: "We want to establish correlations between the type and size of microplastics and the variables of the washing machines, says the Polytechnique Montreal professor. Are they cycles with more or less water, front-loading washers or not, for example?"
Despite the effectiveness of such filters, there are caveats. For example, they must be cleaned frequently to prevent microplastics from bypassing them. Some even suggest that the garment industry should control the problem at the source, since new garments release the most microplastics during washing.
More details can be found in the La Presse article » [in French]
