Researchers have come up with the world's first ‘visual fibre fragmentation scale’ that can help manufacturers quickly identify low shedding materials and select these for further testing to determine their suitability for garment production.
- Existing methods, such as those used by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), are more expensive and time-consuming.
THE SCALE: The five-point scale assesses the volume of fibre fragments shed from different clothing materials, with observers visually grading each between one and five—grade one has the highest volume of shed fibres to grade five having the least.
- In testing their new scale, the academics used a machine containing eight separate canisters, known as a rotawash.
- Textile samples were placed within the canisters, filled with water and then churned to replicate a washing machine cycle. The wastewater was then filtered, allowing the testers and observers to visually grade the shed fibres against the scale.
- Some 46 testers from the fashion industry, university students and the public volunteered in the project, grading about 100 samples over two years.
- Visual scales are already used in the fashion industry to measure how much bobbling a material may suffer on its surface, for example, or, perhaps the most well-known is the gray scale, which measures colour fading or staining, but there was no such tool for fibre shedding.
- This project aims to change that, and allow manufacturers to not only make better choices in production but also to communicate to their customers in a very simple and straightforward way, the typical amount of fibres shed from a garment.
The findings were featured in the journal Plastics in a paper titled, ‘Low-cost, high-throughput quantification of microplastics released from textile wash tests: Introducing the fiber fragmentation scale’.
THE TEAM: For four years, a small team headed by Dr Lisa Macintyre, associate professor of textiles at the Heriot-Watt University's School of Textiles and Design in the Galashiels campus in the Scottish Borders was working on this project.
- Sophia Murden, in her final year studying for a PhD in fibre fragmentation testing at the University, was assisting Dr Macintyre.
THE CONTEXT: Thousands of tiny fibres can be shed from some clothing through daily wear and tear, including laundry. They are typically very thin, ranging in size from a fraction of a millimetre to several centimetres in length. Despite their small size, they can inflict substantial harm on ecosystems, animals, and human health, potentially leading to cellular damage and inflammation.
