Washing Machines

A new study from Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology that examined the driving forces behind laundering behaviours, provides new tools for how people's environmental impact can be reduced.

Scientists at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, better known by the shorter EMPA, have found that some of the supposed nanoplastics released during textile washing are not nanoplastics, but are actually clumps of water-insoluble oligomer molecules.

A new research shows that washing clothing by hand can shed just as many microfibres as laundry washed in a machine and resolving this pollution problem requires changes in how textiles are designed, manufactured and traded on a global scale.

The humble washing machine is ensuring that sustainable fashion goes for a toss in Britain as households use it with indiscriminate settings jacking up their electricity bills and ruining the longevity of clothing, says a not-for-profit campaign.

The call to reduce shedding of microfibres got stronger as A Plastic Planet, a pro-business, pro-solutions organisation, exhorts policymakers to mandate filters in new washing machines as the only effective, near-term solution to reduce the release of microplastics in the environment.

Researchers have found that the annual release of 6,860–17,847 tonnes of microfibre from UK's washing is a relatively small problem in comparison to the fashion industry's waste problem, with 365,000 tonnes of clothing going to landfill every year.

Researchers have come up with a solution that could to some extent resolve the issue of microplastic fibres that are shed when clothes made of synthetic fabrics are laundered, finally making their way into waterways impacting marine and human life.

Back to basics it is. Now hand wash your clothes to save the environment. A research has found that manual methods release far fewer fibres than machine laundering that releases over five times more microplastics.