Quantification of different microplastic fibres discharged from textiles in machine wash and tumble drying
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Quantification of different microplastic fibres discharged from textiles in machine wash and tumble drying Niina Kärkkäinen 1 & Markus Sillanpää 1 Received: 18 April 2020 / Accepted: 6 December 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Microplastic fibres released in synthetic cloth washing have been shown to be a source of microplastics into the environment. The annual emission of polyester fibres from household washing machines has earlier been estimated to be 150,000 kg in a country with a population of 5.5 × 106 (Finland). The objectives of this study were (1) to quantify the emissions of synthetic textile fibres discharged from five sequential machine washes (fibre number and length) and tumble dryings (fibre mass) and (2) to determine the collection efficiency of two commercial fibre traps. The synthetic fabrics were five types of polyester textiles, one polyamide and one polyacryl. The number of fibres released from the test fabrics in the first wash varied in the range from 1.0 × 105 to 6.3 × 106 kg−1. The fibre lengths showed that the fleece fabrics released, on average, longer fibres than the technical sports t-shirts. The mass of fibres ranged from 10 to 1700 mg/kg w/w in the first drying. Fibre emissions showed a decreasing trend both in sequential washes and dryings. The ratio of the fibre emissions in machine wash to tumble drying varied between the fabrics: the ratio was larger than one to polyester and polyamide technical t-shirts whereas it was much lower to the other tested textiles. GuppyFriend washing bag and Cora Ball trapped 39% and 10% of the polyester fibres discharged in washings, respectively. Keywords Microplastic . Polyester . Polyamide . Polyacryl . Washing machine . Tumble drier . Household . Emission
Introduction Plastics are synthetic materials made from mixtures of organic polymers and additives. They are used in a wide range of applications due to their low cost, ease of manufacture and many advantageous properties. In the year 2018, the world plastic production reached 359 million tonnes (Plastics 2019), a number which is expected to still rise in the future. During the last decade, microplastics have been observed in different kinds of environments all over the world which has raised concern in both the scientific community and the public. Microplastics are often defined as small solid synthetic polymer particles with the largest dimension less than 5 mm and the smallest dimension equal to 1 μm. They may contain functional additives and possible residual impurities such as bisphenol A, phthalates, flame retardants and UV absorbers. Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues * Markus Sillanpää [email protected] 1
Laboratory Centre, Finnish Environment Institute, Mustialankatu 3, FIN-00790 Helsinki, Finland
Microplastics have a large surface-area-to-volume ratio that contributes to their ability to act as vectors for different kinds of hydrophobic substances in the environment (Lee et al. 2014). The small size of the microplastics also makes them available for ing
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