Science puts fresh spin on laundry menace

Wrongly using a delicate cycle for everyday laundry has an adverse impact on water systems.

Man wearing grey sweater putting clothes into washing machine at laundry room

Wrongly using a delicate cycle for everyday laundry is causing hundreds of thousands of extra microfibres to be released into our water systems and end up in the sea, ­scientists have found.

Although regular washing ­cycles caused clothes to be bashed together and created more friction between garments, they used less water than gentler programs that agitated the garments less, they said.

The researchers at Britain’s Newcastle University found the volume of water used, rather than the spinning action in the drum, was the key factor in plucking the tiny plastic particles from man-made material.

Millions of plastic microfibres were shed during every wash cycle that contained nylon, polyester and acrylic. Because these fibres were so small, they drained out of the back of the washing machine and could ultimately enter the marine environment, where they may be ingested by tiny animals and end up in the food chain.

Two years ago, the Newcastle University scientists showed these fibres had reached the deepest parts of our ocean.

PhD student Max Kelly, working with Procter & Gamble, measured the release of microfibres from polyester clothes from a range of different cycles, temperatures and water volumes.

Counting the fibres released, the team found the higher the volume of water the more fibres released, regardless of the speed and abrasive forces of the machine.

Using a hi-tech camera they counted 1.4 million fibres from a delicate wash of a polyester garment, 800,000 from a normal cotton wash and 600,000 from a cold express program.

“Counter-intuitively, we discovered ‘delicate’ cycles release more plastic microfibres into the water, and then the environment, than standard cycles,” Mr Kelly said. The findings have been published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

PA