Laundry has always been an unpleasant chore. But now laundry also comes with the guilt that each load is releasing plastic microfibers into the environment. The microfibers have been found in human waste, and in fish. Trying to reduce your impact is difficult. One option is to try to only use clothing made out of natural fibers. This, however, has its own environmental impacts. There are filters that can trap some of the microscopic fibers from your synthetic clothes.

Key Takeaways:

• It is disheartening when one is doing the laundry and is environmentally concerned to know that every laundry releases thousands of tiny synthetic fibers into the water.
• Microfiber pollution is endemic and can be found even in distant places like in sea ice, in a Mongolian mountain lake and at the bottom of the ocean.
• It was discovered recently that plastic fibers can be found in human feces because it has gotten into our foods, water, or both.

“Buying clothes exclusively made of natural fibers is one option, but cultivating more cotton or grazing more sheep has its own environmental consequences.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/14/plastic-microfiber-pollution-clothes-washing-solutions