Filters on laundry machines lead to 'significant' cut in microfibre pollution, Ontario study finds

Installing filters on washing machines could be a simple and effective way to catch the microscopic particles our clothes shed, according to a study released this week by the University of Toronto and nonprofit Georgian Bay Forever. 

Every time you wash a load of laundry, anywhere from a few hundred thousand to millions of microfibres come off of the fabrics, says lead study author Lisa Erdle.

Erdle, who is a PhD candidate at U of T and worked on the study with three other colleagues, says the microfibres are shed by both synthetic and treated natural fabrics like cotton and wool, making their way into the water and air, and ultimately, into our bodies. 

The team's study recruited 97 households in Parry Sound, Ont. to attach a special microfibre-catching filter — which costs about $200 — to their home washing machines. 

"This is the first study that really put these filters into peoples homes and tested whether they are effective at the scale of a community," Erdle told CBC Toronto. 

By testing wastewater arriving at the town's treatment plant before and after the filters were installed, the research team was able to track a "significant reduction" in the amount of microfibres showing up, she said. 

"Since we had about 10 per cent of [Parry Sound] households, we thought we would see about a 10 per cent decrease. We saw an even greater decrease than that," Erdle said. 

That extra decrease could be because growing awareness about microfibres led people to change their washing habits, "but we don't necessarily know," she continued. 

Microfibres shed from textiles have been building up in the world's waterways for decades now, spurred in part by the rising popularity of high-shed fabrics like polyester.  

Despite filtering at water treatment plants that catches many of them, Erdle and her team cite research that shows that some 4.8 million tonnes of synthetic microfibres have made their way into "waterways and terrestrial environments" since 1950 — a number that would be much higher if it included fibres from treated natural textiles like cotton and wool. 

From there, says Erdle, the particles end up in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and in animals we consume. 

"We don't know a lot about how microfibres are affecting humans, that research has just begun," she said. 

"But it's kind of gross that we're eating and drinking and breathing in these fibres from our clothing that could be having an effect." 

There has, however, been research on the effect of the fibres on fish, showing an impact on growth and feeding behaviours, as well as liver damage.