Safety

[ysabetwordsmith]

Inventor’s Microfiber Laundry Filter Is Already Keeping Tons of Fossil-Fuel Fibers Out of the Environment

An English inventor has partnered with home appliance giant Bosch to produce a laundry machine filter for artificial microfibers, the world’s most significant source of microplastic pollution.


Progress!

Honestly, I'd rather solve that problem by avoiding synthetic clothes in the first place.  Alas, all-natural clothes are almost impossible to find nowadays, except for certain categories like tie-dye that really need to be.

Comments

[moonhare]

This is a great start, keeping the fibers out of the waste water stream, but Matter’s website doesn’t address where the easy-clean particulates will end up afterwards: in the trash with the dryer’s lint filter residue?

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Even putting them in a landfill would be better than releasing them into the waterways. However, I would classify them as toxic / hazardous waste to be gathered at the same dropoffs or pickups for things like batteries and leftover paint.

[thewayne]

Nice! I have a filter that can be put on any washer for microplastics that I got from Kickstarter. I don't recall having ever seen Bosch appliances on offer in a store.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Kickstarter is awesome.

[blogcutter]

What a fascinating article and fascinating invention! Our dishwasher is a Bosch and has been very reliable. Our washer and dryer are both Maytags. Is this device compatible with other makes of laundry machines?

I'm definitely with you on the matter of synthetic clothing. I do sometimes manage to find all-natural fibre clothing, though increasingly it's second-hand, from thrift and consignment shops, garage sales etc.

In our jurisdiction, dryer lint is picked up with our recyclables (basically as compostable material). I don't know about microplastic residue: I suspect it would have to go out with regular garbage, although surely it's better to be separating it out, rather than having it flow into our waterways?

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Is this device compatible with other makes of laundry machines?<<

I don't know, but it is a logical extrapolation. It should be feasible to make one core device with a variety of adapters for different models of washer.

Now that I know it exists, I will watch for it. $250 is not cheap, but we just dropped $160 on a dehumidifier and are delighted with that. Also we're not on city sewer, we're out in the country, so everything goes somewhere in the yard. 0_o

>>I do sometimes manage to find all-natural fibre clothing, though increasingly it's second-hand, from thrift and consignment shops, garage sales etc.<<

Yeah, that's what I'm down to, other than tie-dye T-shirts at events.

>> In our jurisdiction, dryer lint is picked up with our recyclables (basically as compostable material).<<

Huh. I did not know that. I wouldn't consider it compostable due to the high rate of synthetics. Because here is what happens when you try to compost synthetics. :(

>> I don't know about microplastic residue: I suspect it would have to go out with regular garbage, although surely it's better to be separating it out, rather than having it flow into our waterways?<<

Landfilling it is better than dumping it into the waterways. However, I myself would classify it as toxic / hazardous waste to be disposed of at the dropoffs or pickup days designated for things like batteries or leftover paint.