In this episode, we cover different themes to do with the ethics of laundry. A big focus of the episode is on plastic microfibre pollution, so the research notes focus on it too!

Water and Energy Use

Switching to warm or cold water settings is a great way to save energy – switching your temperature setting from hot to warm can cut a load’s energy use in half (source). On this metric, it’s better to use full loads. If you’re buying a washer/dryer, look for the Energy Star and EnergyGuide labels. However, if you’re replacing a functional washer/dryer the math around this can be complicated because of the energy it takes to manufacture new appliances.

Plastic Microfibre Pollution

The clothing industry produces more than 42 million tonnes of synthetic fibres annually – about 80% of which are used to make polyester garments. Approximately two-thirds of all textiles are now synthetic, and this is mainly petroleum-based organic polymers like polyester. These fabrics leach into the water supply when they are washed. Small fibres come off of clothing in the wash, and because they are too small to be captured by washing machine filters they make their way into sewage treatment plants, which often can’t filter them either. Then treated wastewater is often dumped into rivers or the ocean. Synthetic clothing releases between 500,000 and 6 million microfibres per wash.

Microplastics are a major source of water pollution. Plastic microfibres have been found everywhere – including in arctic sea ice and at the bottom of the ocean. Plastic microfibres are also bad for marine animals

Somewhat counterintuitively, there is some evidence that delicate wash cycles release more plastic microfibres than standard wash cycles. The volume of water used per wash is the most important factor in dislodging fibres from clothing, according to that study.

Solutions

If you are concerned about the effect of microplastics on health and the environment, there are a few strategies you can try. First, you can use a fibre-collecting device. Second, you can buy more organic fibres. Third, you can wash your clothing less.

There are three fibre-collecting devices that we were able to find: Lint LUV-R, Cora Ball, and Guppy Bag.

Lint LUV-R: The most effective thing that you can do is install a filter outside your laundry machine called Lint LUV-R. This filter collects about 87% of microfibres, according to a study by researchers at the University of Toronto and the Ocean Conservancy. The study used a polyester fleece blanket as the test item, since that fabric sheds a lot.

Cora Ball: The Cora Ball is a ball that looks something like a round, blue pinecone. It is made from recycled and recyclable plastic. Basically, you just throw the Cora Ball in with the load of laundry and then take it out afterwards. The same study found that the Cora Ball is less effective at capturing microfibres – it only gets about 26% of fibres.

Guppy Bag: This is a bag made of something called polyamide 6.6. You fill it no more than half full with clothing and put it in your washing machine. Clothing in the bag sheds less. Apparently, it is also very effective at capturing microfibres. The manufacturers claim that it is almost 100% effective at this, but I wasn’t able to find an independent study verifying this. The Guppy Bag is really effective, but it limits the amount of laundry you can put into a load, which in turn means increasing your water use. One option is to add non-synthetic clothing outside of the Guppy Bag, to increase the laundry that you use.

Another option is buying clothes made exclusively of natural fibres, though this is difficult to do in today’s fashion industry. Some synthetics are better than others: a study found that polyester-cotton blends release just 138,000 fibres per wash, compared with 496,000 for polyester and 729,000 for acrylic. But there is also considerable variation in how much textiles will shed even within the same material type.

You can also just wash clothing less. Generally speaking, things like t-shirts and underwear should be washed after every wear, but with most other things you can go anywhere between 3 and 7 wears without washing.

Waste-free Detergents and Softeners

In the episode we talk about plastic containers from laundry detergent. Kyla mentions having used soap nuts for laundry detergent as a waste free solution. Here is a recipe for making waste-free liquid detergent from soap nuts!

Animal Welfare

On animal welfare, we discuss animal testing and detergents. See our cruelty-free episode for more on this!

Kyla’s Notes

The city of Edmonton has a cool website showing what consumers can do to reduce their environmental footprint, check it out here!

Want more information on on soap nuts? Check out this link, and this one!

Check out this Gizmodo article for more information on hot vs cold wash. The New York Times weighs in as well!