Microfiber Madness: Synthetic Fabrics Harm Wildlife, Poison the Food Supply and Expose You to Toxic Chemicals 
 
 Colourful Textile fleece sport shirts hanging in row at store 
 
 Photo Credit: dvoevnore/Shutterstock 
 
 Doing laundry isn’t something most of us enjoy doing. And now the evidence is clear that the world’s aquatic animals don’t enjoy it either. It turns out that clothes made from synthetic fibers shed tiny plastic microfibers in every wash. This fibrous debris goes from your washing machine, through the municipal sewage system and ends up in all sorts of waterways—marine, coastal and freshwater—where the tiny fibers are ingested by fish, crabs and other aquatic wildlife. In turn, many of these animals end up in our food supply—and on our dinner plates. It seems we are slowly, and literally, eating the shirts off our backs. 
 
 A host of recent studies have sounded alarm bells. One frightening conclusion is that these microfibers—a subcategory of microplastics—are even more pervasive in the environment than microbeads, tiny plastic beads common in beauty products that were recently banned in the United States. 
 
 One of first researchers to lift the veil on this environmental crisis was ecologist Mark Browne. In 2011, Browne, now a senior research associate at the University of New South Wales in Australia, published a paper in the journal Environmental Science and Technology that concluded microfibers from synthetic fabrics like nylon and acrylic make up 85 percent of human-made debris across the world’s shorelines. The vast majority of that synthetic waste is being released from clothing when it’s washed in laundry machines. 
 
 Browne’s experiments were eye-opening. He sampled wastewater from domestic washing machines and found that just one piece of clothing can release nearly 2,000 individual microfibers in a single wash. “As the human population grows and people use more synthetic textiles, contamination of habitats and animals by microplastic is likely to increase,” Browne concluded. 
 
 After he published his research, Browne reached out to several leading apparel companies, including Patagonia, Nike and Polartec, in the hopes of forging a collaboration to determine the exact movement of these microfibers—from clothing to oceans—and to develop a more sustainable textile design to stop the crisis from growing. His vision, which he presented in 2013, is called Benign by Design, a program supported by a number of scientists and engineers from academic institutions around the world, including the Environmental Protection Agency. Benign by Design, according to its website, “disrupts the current unsustainable pattern by showing companies exactly how textile wear leads to fiber pollution and ways to control their emissions.” 
 
 But the companies Browne approached weren’t interested in supporting his idea. “Perhaps it’s my pitch,” Browne told the Guardian. “We want to look for new, more durable materials that do not emit so much microplastic.” Only one firm, Eileen Fisher, accepted his proposal, giving him $10,000 to support his work. 
 
 “Any lifecycle issue, especially when it’s about a huge consumer product like clothing, is important,” Shona Quinn, sustainability leader at Eileen Fisher, told the Guardian. “[Browne] is raising an issue no one else has been studying.” Alas, Eileen Fisher isn’t a main source of the problem: 90 percent of its clothing is made from natural textiles. Still, receiving the funding was validation of Browne’s work. 
 
 Then, in an ironic twist, Patagonia itself validated Browne’s work when a study it funded that was conducted by researchers at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara was released in June. The researchers analyzed water and sediment samples from around the world and concluded that, indeed, “microfibers are ubiquitous in aquatic environments.” They also analyzed the wash cycles of four different types of synthetic Patagonia jackets (and one budget fleece jacket for comparison). 
 
 Here are some of the details of what they found: 
 
 Finished apparel products contain large quantities of chemical substances… many of which are released from garments during consumer washing. This indicates that microfibers are of particular concern regarding their potential to transport hazardous chemicals into the environment. 
 
 Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) receive large amounts of microfibers daily. 
 
 While most of these microfibers are removed, a significant amount is still released into the local environment. 
 
 Aquatic organisms throughout the food chain consume microplastics and microfibers both directly and indirectly. 
 
 Within the food chain, these particles have been found to cause physical and chemical impacts, resulting in starvation and reproductive consequences in species. 
 
 Synthetic fleece jackets release an average of 1.7 grams of microfibers with every wash. 
 
 Older synthetic fleece jackets shed nearly two times the amount of microfiber than new ones. 
 
 Curiously, the Patagonia study found that top-loading washing machines had more than five times the microfiber shedding than front-loading machine in their trials. 
 
 The UCSB researchers also noted that, while the main focus of the microfiber pollution research has been on aquatic ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems are not immune. “It's increasingly common to apply sewage sludge to agricultural fields so more fibers are being found on land,” they noted. 
 
 And there’s more irony. In an effort to reduce waste, Patagonia and other outdoor apparel companies use tiny plastic fibers taken from recycled plastic bottles in their products, to prevent those bottles from ending up in landfills or the ocean. However, as all this research is making clear, this good-intentioned strategy may actually be worse for the environment than leaving those plastic bottles intact. They’ll end up in the ocean anyway, in bits small enough for animals to ingest. 
 
 Knowing that aquatic wildlife eat these microfibers is one thing; but seeing the impact on an individual fish brings this crisis to life—or rather, death. Sherri Mason is a professor of environmental chemistry at the State University of New York at Fredonia. She's an expert in plastic pollution, having studied its impact on the Great Lakes ecosystem for several years. But as Leah Messinger recently reported in the Guardian, the first time Mason cut open a fish from the Great Lakes, “she was alarmed at what she found.” The body cavity of the fish was filled with synthetic fibers. Mason said that looking through a microscope, they seemed to be “weaving themselves into the gastrointestinal tract.” 
 
 This problem is pervasive and not going away anytime soon. Abigail Barrows is the principal investigator of the Global Microplastics Initiative, part of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, a nonprofit research organization based in Bozeman, Montana. After processing nearly 2,000 aquatic samples covering both freshwater and marine ecosystems, she came to a similar grim conclusion: Microfibers represent about 90 percent of the debris found in aquatic environments. 
 
 What's more, recent research has shown that the ingestion of microfibers by wildlife is even worse than previously thought. In 2014, researchers at the University of Exeter in England studied the impact of microplastics on crabs. What they found was extremely concerning. Crabs don’t just ingest microplastics through their mouths; microplastics also enter their bodies through their gills. This discovery was unexpected, and it has serious ramifications not just for the poor, unwitting crabs, but other crustaceans, molluscs and fish—really any animal who has a gill-like structure used for exchanging gases. 
 
 This is also bad news for the humans who eat these species. “This is highly important from an ecological point of view, as if these plastics are retained longer within the animal there is more chance of them being passed up the food chain," said Andrew Watts, the study's lead author. 
 
 Since aquatic animals ingest these microfibers, and humans ingest those aquatic animals, people whose diet includes fish and crustaceans are likely also ingesting these tiny plastic bits. The UCSB researchers concluded, “Microplastics and microfibers have also been found in marine species directly consumed by humans, the effects of which are unknown.” Their findings just confirmed what Mason and her colleagues have known for years. After her 2012 pollution survey of the Great Lakes, she raised the food chain warning flag: “The world is an interconnected system,” she said. “This is not just about aquatic animals; it is a significant concern to human health as well.” 
 
 Gregg Treinish, founder and executive director of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, which oversees Barrows' microfiber research, said because of these studies, he has eliminated aquatic animals from his diet. 
 
 “I don’t want to have eaten fish for 50 years and then say, ‘Oh, whoops’,” he told the Guardian. But avoiding seafood may not exclude one from harm. The UCSB researchers also detected microplastics in non-animal, marine-sourced food products like sea salt. So, even vegetarians and vegans could be impacted. 
 
 In addition to eating animals that contain microplastics, there’s another potential health concern with synthetic clothing, and that is the various toxic chemicals they might contain, such as formaldehyde, brominated flame retardants (PBDEs) and perfluorinated chemicals like Teflon. 
 
 Formaldehyde, which the EPA lists as a “probable human carcinogen,” is released by some textile finishes, particularly those that are meant to be wrinkle-resistant, while the garment is new. (That's one reason always to wash new clothing before wearing it.) PBDEs are no better, with the Washington Post reporting that they have been linked to “thyroid disruption, memory and learning problems, delayed mental and physical development, lower IQ, advanced puberty and reduced fertility.” 
 
 The National Institutes of Health says that some perfluorinated chemicals like Teflon—which are sometimes added to clothing to make them waterproof—“disrupt normal endocrine activity; reduce immune function; cause adverse effects on multiple organs, including the liver and pancreas; and cause developmental problems.” Some of these toxic chemicals are bioaccumulative, so even if you absorb tiny amounts through your skin on a daily basis, after many years, a health impact might arise. 
 
 So what can be done? One solution would be to update filters at municipal WWTPs so they can catch microfibers before they are released into waterways. But this is cost-prohibitive. As the UCSB researchers write, “Due to the high capital costs of WWTPs, upgrading WWTPs is not a feasible solution to microfiber pollution in the short term.” 
 
 Another solution would be to modify washing machines. The Rozalia Project, a nonprofit ocean conservancy group, has developed what it describes as “the world’s first consumer solution to stop microfiber pollution.” Its patent-pending "microfiber catcher"—a grapefruit-sized ball you can simply throw into your washing machine—collects microfibers that your clothes shed during the wash cycle to prevent them from escaping with the drain water. 
 
 But updating the world’s washing machines is a tall order. As Jill Notini, vice president of communications and marketing for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, told the Guardian: “How do you possibly retrofit all of the units that are in the market and then add a filter in and talk to consumers and say, ‘Here is a new thing that you’re going to have to do with your clothes washer?’” 
 
 The best solution, then, is to attack the problem on the production side (i.e., make more sustainable textiles that don’t shed microfibers) and the consumer side (i.e., stop buying synthetic garments), simultaneously. It will take time to develop non-shedding synthetic textiles (and get all the main producers on board with the idea), but in the meantime, consumers need to be aware of the issue, because the problem isn’t going away, and it's just going to get worse. Until shed-free synthetics are available, choosing clothing made out of natural fibers like cotton is the best bet, for environmental and personal health. 
 
 “This is a human issue,” said Dr. Watts. “We have put this plastic there, mostly accidently, but it is our problem to solve. The best way to do this is to reduce our dependency on plastic. It comes back to the old phrase: reduce, reuse and recycle.” Just don’t recycle plastic bottles into synthetic fleece jackets. 
 
 [Editor's note: A previous version of this article incorrectly used the word "toxins." Toxins are poisonous substances produced by metabolic activities of a living organism. That is not the case with plastic microfibers. The error has been corrected to "toxic chemicals." Thank you to careful reader Judith S. Weis for pointing this out.] ||||| Are We Eating Our Fleece Jackets? Microfibers Are Migrating Into Field And Food 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption emholk/iStockphoto/Getty Images emholk/iStockphoto/Getty Images 
 
 The innovation of synthetic fleece has allowed many outdoor enthusiasts to hike with warmth and comfort. But what many of these fleece-wearing nature lovers don't know is that each wash of their jackets and pullovers releases thousands of microscopic plastic fibers, or microfibers, into the environment — from their favorite national park to agricultural lands to waters with fish that make it back onto our plates. 
 
 This has scientists wondering: Are we eating our sweaters' synthetic microfibers? 
 
 Probably, says Chelsea Rochman, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Toronto, St. George. "Microfibers seem to be one of the most common plastic debris items in animals and environmental samples," Rochman says. 
 
 In fact, peer-reviewed studies have shown that these synthetic microfibers — a type of plastic smaller than a millimeter in length and made up of various synthetic polymers — have popped up in table salt in China, in arctic waters and in fish caught off the coast of California. These tiny fibers make up 85 percent of human debris on shorelines across the globe, according to a 2011 study. They're basically inescapable. So it's not unlikely they're finding their way into the human diet, especially in seafood. 
 
 In an effort to increase transparency and minimize pollution from their products, California-based clothing company Patagonia, popular for its microfiber-containing vests, pullovers and jackets, has started to partner with research groups to get to the bottom of how these fibers might be affecting both wildlife and human health. 
 
 Last year, the company worked with a research group led by Patricia Holden, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, on a study to quantify microfiber release in washing machines. The group ran both name-brand and off-brand polyester fleece jackets through the wash without detergent to get a handle on the mass of microfibers shed each time. 
 
 The results, published in September of last year in Environmental Science and Technology, were eye-opening. Each wash of a jacket shed microfibers up to 2 grams. (For reference, a paperclip weighs 1.5 grams.) Also, each fleece jacket released seven times more fibers when washed in a top-load washing machine versus a front-load. 
 
 The dryer traps extra fuzz in the lint filter, says Holden. "But in the washer, [the microfibers are] carried down the drain." From there, they end up in wastewater treatment plants, where many fibers can't be filtered out and are released into the environment. Holden notes that this is just one pathway microfibers take into the environment. There could be additional pathways that scientists have yet to understand, she says. 
 
 And then there is the larger question: Are these tiny synthetic fibers harmful to humans and wildlife? 
 
 The answer is still fuzzy. Some research indicates certain wildlife might be affected: Two studies showed that ingesting microfibers leads to increased mortality in water fleas and makes common crabs eat less food overall. But it's unclear what effects, if any, they have on you and me. 
 
 So the question for us is: Do we choose to eat seafood, knowing that we'll probably get a few microfibers woven in? Or do we quit seafood altogether on the chance that they could have adverse health effects? 
 
 "I have no doubt that every time I eat oysters and mussels I eat at least one microfiber," says Rochman, who studies microplastics in marine habitats and continues to indulge in seafood. "I see dust in the air and we inhale that. The question is, at what point does it become a problem? Here, the benefits outweigh the costs." 
 
 Gregg Treinish, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Adventure Scientists, has a different take. "If you're eating fish, you're eating plastic," Treinish says. "There's no proven causal relationship with health issues, but I don't want to spend the next 50 years eating it and then learn I shouldn't have been." 
 
 Holden, Rochman, Treinish and others all agree that we don't understand everything about how microfibers traverse ecosystems and what they do inside human and wildlife bodies. But to minimize pollution in the first place, there are short-term solutions we can adopt. 
 
 Treinish rigged his washing machine with a filter designed for septic systems, hoping to catch some microfibers before they escape into the waterways. So far, he has filled two Nalgene water bottles with the filtrate. He continues to use the filter. 
 
 And he suggests a simpler solution: Just wash your fleece less often. "Obviously I'll wash my jacket if a kid throws up on it," Treinish says, "but not if I just wore it once. It's important what individuals do. I hope that doesn't get lost." ||||| New studies show that alarming numbers of tiny fibers from synthetic fabrics are making their way from your washing machine into aquatic animals 
 
 How your clothes are poisoning our oceans and food supply 
 
 How your clothes are poisoning our oceans and food supply 
 
 The first time professor Sherri Mason cut open a Great Lakes fish, she was alarmed at what she found. Synthetic fibers were everywhere. Under a microscope, they seemed to be “weaving themselves into the gastrointestinal tract”. Though she had been studying aquatic pollution around the Great Lakes for several years, Mason, who works for the State University of New York Fredonia, had never seen anything like it. 
 
 
 
 New studies indicate that the fibers in our clothes could be poisoning our waterways and food chain on a massive scale. Microfibers – tiny threads shed from fabric – have been found in abundance on shorelines where waste water is released. 
 
 Now researchers are trying to pinpoint where these plastic fibers are coming from. 
 
 I don’t want to have eaten fish for 50 years and then say, ‘Oh, whoops’ 
 
 In an alarming study released Monday, researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara found that, on average, synthetic fleece jackets release 1.7 grams of microfibers each wash. It also found that older jackets shed almost twice as many fibers as new jackets. The study was funded by outdoor clothing manufacturer Patagonia, a certified B Corp that also offers grants for environmental work. 
 
 “These microfibers then travel to your local wastewater treatment plant, where up to 40% of them enter rivers, lakes and oceans,” according to findings published on the researchers’ website. 
 
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 Synthetic microfibers are particularly dangerous because they have the potential to poison the food chain. The fibers’ size also allows them to be readily consumed by fish and other wildlife. These plastic fibers have the potential to bioaccumulate, concentrating toxins in the bodies of larger animals, higher up the food chain. 
 
 Microbeads, recently banned in the US, are a better-known variety of microplastic, but recent studies have found microfibers to be even more pervasive. 
 
 In a groundbreaking 2011 paper, Mark Browne, now a senior research associate at the University of New South Wales, Australia, found that microfibers made up 85% of human-made debris on shorelines around the world. 
 
 While Patagonia and other outdoor companies, like Polartec, use recycled plastic bottles as a way to conserve and reduce waste, this latest research indicates that the plastic might ultimately end up in the oceans anyway – and in a form that’s even more likely to cause problems. 
 
 Breaking a plastic bottle into millions of fibrous bits of plastic might prove to be worse than doing nothing at all. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Abigail Barrows, principal investigator of the Global Microplastics Initiative, says that microfibers are a bigger problem than most realize Photograph: Veronica Young 
 
 Scary science 
 
 While the UCSB study is sure to make waves, researchers are consistently finding more and more evidence that microfibers are in many marine environments and in large quantities. 
 
 What’s more, the fibers are being found in fresh water as well. “This is not just a coastal or marine problem,” said Abigail Barrows, principal investigator of the Global Microplastics Initiative, part of the research group Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation. 
 
 Of the almost 2,000 aquatic samples Barrows has processed, about 90% of the debris was microfibers – both in freshwater and the ocean. 
 
 Microfibers are also the second most common type of debris in Lake Michigan, according to Sherri Mason’s research. 
 
 Finishing up research into tributaries of the Great Lakes, she’s finding that microfibers are the most common type of debris in those smaller bodies of water. “The majority [71%] of what we’re finding in the tributaries are actually fibers,” Mason said by email. “They exceed fragments and pellets.” 
 
 Minister says UK government 'fully backs' microbeads ban Read more 
 
 Mason is finding that the wildlife is indeed being affected. 
 
 A study out of the University of Exeter, in which crabs were given food contaminated with microfibers, found that they altered animals’ behavior. The crabs ate less food overall, suggesting stunted growth over time. The polypropylene was also broken down and transformed into smaller pieces, creating a greater surface area for chemical transmission. (Plastics leach chemicals such as Bisphenol A – BPA – as they degrade.) 
 
 Mason said her concern is not necessarily with the plastic fibers themselves, but with their ability to absorb persistent organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and to concentrate them in animals’ tissues. 
 
 An increasingly toxic problem 
 
 Gregg Treinish, founder and executive director of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, which oversees Barrows’s microfibers work, said studies have led him to stop eating anything from the water. 
 
 “I don’t want to have eaten fish for 50 years and then say, ‘Oh, whoops’,” Treinish said. 
 
 His organization received $9,000 from Patagonia to research microfibers in 2016. 
 
 “It absolutely has the potential to move up the food chain,” said Chelsea Rochman, a postdoctoral fellow in conservation biology at the University of California at Davis and the University of Toronto. She cautioned, however, against a rush to avoid fish: “I think no one’s really asked questions directly about that yet.” 
 
 Rochman’s own recent study of seafood from California and Indonesia indicates that plastic fibers contaminate the food we eat. 
 
 Testing fish and shellfish from markets in both locations, Rochman determined that “all [human-made] debris recovered from fish in Indonesia was plastic, whereas [human-made] debris recovered from fish in the US was primarily fibers”. 
 
 Rochman said she can’t yet explain why fish in the US are filled with microfibers. She speculates that washing machines are less pervasive in Indonesia and synthetic, high performance fabrics, such as fleece, which are known to shed a lot of fibers, are not as common in Indonesia. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tiny plastic fibers taken from a water sample in Blue Hill Bay in the gulf of Maine. Photograph: Marine Environmental Research Institute 
 
 Industry reacts ... slowly 
 
 Companies that have built their businesses on the environment have been some of the first to pay attention to the growing microfiber issue. Patagonia proposed the Bren School study in 2015, after polyester, the primary component of outdoor fabrics like fleece, showed up as a major ocean pollutant. 
 
 Patagonia is part of a working group, as is Columbia Sportswear and 18 others, studying the issue through the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), a trade group consisting of about 1,300 companies around the world. 
 
 People may be breathing in microplastics, health expert warns Read more 
 
 “We believe the outdoor industry is likely one of those [industries that contribute to the microfiber issue], but we just don’t know the breadth,” said Beth Jenson, OIA’s director of corporate responsibility. 
 
 In an email, Patagonia spokesperson Tessa Byars wrote: “Patagonia is concerned about this issue and we’re taking concerted steps to figure out the impacts that our materials and products – at every step in their lifecycle – may have on the marine environment.” 
 
 Miriam Diamond, an earth sciences professor who runs the University of Toronto lab where Rochman now works, said she believes so-called fast fashion could play a larger role than the comparatively smaller outdoor apparel industry. “What I suspect is that some of the cheaper fabrics will more easily shed fibers. It’s probably that the fibers aren’t as long or that they aren’t spun as well,” Diamond said. 
 
 Inditex, which owns Zara and Massimo Duti among others, said microfibers fall into the category of issues covered by its Global Water Strategy, which includes ongoing plans to evaluate and improve wastewater management at its mills. 
 
 H&M declined to comment on the microfiber issue, as did Topshop , which responded by email “we are not quite ready to make an official statement on this issue”. 
 
 US to ban soaps and other products containing microbeads Read more 
 
 Time to take action 
 
 Mark Browne, the researcher responsible for first bringing microfibers to public attention, said that the grace period is over. 
 
 “We know that these are the most abundant forms of debris – that they are in the environment,” Brown said. He added that government and industry must be asked to explain “what they are going to be doing about it”. 
 
 The Amsterdam-based Plastic Soup Foundation, an ocean conservation project co-funded by the European Union, said better quality clothing or fabrics coated with an anti-shed treatment could help. 
 
 The foundation’s director, Maria Westerbos, said a nanoball that could be thrown into a washing machine to attract and capture plastic fibers also seems promising. 
 
 Another solution may lie with waterless washing machines, one of which is being developed by Colorado-based Tersus Solutions. Tersus, with funding from Patagonia, has developed a completely waterless washing machine in which textiles are washed in pressurized carbon dioxide. 
 
 Others suggest a filter on home washing machines. More than 4,500 fibers can be released per gram of clothing per wash, according to preliminary data from the Plastic Soup Foundation. 
 
 But the washing machine industry is not yet ready to act. Jill Notini, vice president of communications and marketing for the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, said the washing machine could very well be a source of microfiber debris, but that the proposed solutions are impractical. 
 
 
 
 Microplastics killing fish before they reach reproductive age, study finds Read more 
 
 “How do you possibly retrofit all of the units that are in the market and then add a filter in and talk to consumers and say, ‘Here is a new thing that you’re going to have to do with your clothes washer?’” 
 
 She added that the industry still has trouble getting people to clean lint from the filters in their dryers. 
 
 For Plastic Soup’s Westerbos, the reluctance of the industries that operate in that crucial place between the consumer and the world’s waterways can no longer be tolerated. 
 
 “It’s really insulting that they say it’s not their problem,” Westerbos said. “It’s their problem, too. It’s everybody’s problem.”
– Synthetic fleece is great—until you consider the fact that every time it's washed, it releases thousands of microfibers into the environment. Microscopic plastic fibers may now be one of the most common types of plastic debris found in samples from the environment, including animals, ecologist and evolutionary biologist Chelsea Rochman tells NPR, and that means we humans are likely eating the synthetic fibers without realizing it. Previous studies have found microfibers in table salt and fish; last year, Alternet explained that marine life is particularly prone to ingesting microfibers because they go from the washing machine through the sewage system and into various waterways. Microfibers are, it turns out, more pervasive in the environment than even microbeads—which were banned in the US in 2015 over similar problems. In 2011, one ecologist found that 85% of human debris on shorelines around the world is synthetic microfiber. Now, outdoor outfitting company Patagonia—which often uses microfiber in its products—is also looking into the problem, and has found that a polyester fleece jacket shed as many as 2 grams of microfibers (that's an amount weighing more than a paperclip) each time it's washed, and even more when washed in a top-loader. The next question: Are these microfibers harmful to wildlife and humans? The answer is not yet clear, but one conservationist says he's not waiting to find out; he recommends washing your microfleece as little as possible. The Guardian reported last year that there are also a few ideas floating around for products that would trap microfibers in the washing machine rather than allowing them down the drain. (This microfiber fabric generates its own electricity.)