Scientists have found that clothing could be the source of microplastics in the air. There seems to be nowhere left on the entire planet that doesn’t contain microplastics. The particles have even been found in the pristine, uninhabited regions of the arctic, all the way in Antarctica. Can you believe it’s even been found in the deepest trenches of the ocean, and the air of every city analyzed around the world?
The microplastic pollution is ever-present in the gut of sea turtles, in our drinking water and foods, and now all around us in the air we breathe. Scientists are linking this disaster of a situation primarily on our clothing.
Kings College London researchers conducted a study on microplastics in the air of London. They analyzed the roof of a nine-story building in London’s city center to see how many microplastics were descending onto it. The team chose a building of that height to make sure the microplastics were coming from the atmosphere and not the ground-level activity.
In all, eight samples were taken. All of them contained plastic ranging anywhere from 575 to 1,008 pieces of microplastic per square meter daily. Meaning, millions of microscopic particles of plastic are raining down across London every day.
And here’s why they say the microplastic crisis is mostly due to our clothing: of the 15 different varieties of plastic found in the samples, only around 8% was from broken-down plastic fragments. The rest was fibers, primarily acrylic fibers, which come from fabrics. With this awareness it is difficult to deny that our clothing could be the source of microplastics in the air.
Most of the clothing in the world today is made of synthetic fibers, like acrylic and polyester. These materials shed when washed, and large amounts of fibers are thus dispersed into the water every time people wash their clothes. A study by Plymouth University in 2016 showed that a 6 kg (about 13 lbs) load of laundry containing acrylic sweaters shed over 700,000 fibers, and a load with polyester garments shed nearly 500,000.
There is no way to connect the airborne microplastics definitively to garments, but studies like this provide a strong probability. The fibers that shed into the waterway are so tiny, filters don’t catch them, and they leak into main waterways and eventually reach the ocean. They accumulate over time, precipitation carries them up into the atmosphere where they ultimately rain down on cities. When water dries up, they float into the air and are carried away by the wind.
Synthetics have slowly but surely taken over everyone’s wardrobes since chemical company DuPont introduced nylon in 1938 and later started producing polyester textiles. These damaging clothes aren’t going anywhere because they are much cheaper to use than natural fibers and they provide an attractive range of useful properties, like the ability to wick sweat and stretch. They are a garment manufacturer’s dream come true, and the planet’s worst nightmare.
For now, there is no proof that breathing in air filled with microplastics is harmful to human health. Scientists also don’t know how much of it is in each city, as the study of microplastic in the air is relatively new. Not all cities have been tested either. For now, the record level of microplastic deposits from the atmosphere goes to London. “The biggest concern is we don’t really know much at all,” lead researcher Stephanie Wright, told The Guardian. “I want to find out if it is safe or not.”
