Pre-consumer microfibre shedding equal to home laundering - report
A study by non-profit The Nature Conservancy and consultancy Bain & Company has shown that for every 500 shirts manufactured, one t-shirt’s worth of microfibres pollutes oceans.
The report, Toward Eliminating Pre-consumer Emissions of Microplastics from the Textile Industry, finds that an estimated 0.12 million metric tons (MT) of synthetic microfibres are released into the environment annually at the pre-consumer stage.
The study examines textile manufacturing and materials processing, such as fragmentation of yarn and fabric in the industry and ineffective filtration of fibres that leak into waterways.
While attention on microfibres emissions has been largely focused on the shedding, washing and disposal of synthetic textiles by consumers, the authors say pre-consumer emissions have reached the same order of magnitude as the consumer use stage.
Microplastics are fragments of plastic which are less than 5 mm in diameter. As a pollutant with potentially harmful effects, they are attracting increasing attention from scientific circles, industry, media and consumers. Their effects on organisms, the marine environment and humans are still being understood, but early research has already identified microplastics in seafood, tap water and bottled water. As laundering synthetic clothing is the largest primary microplastics emission pathway, the textiles industry is under increasing pressure to find solutions to avoid shedding of plastic fibres during wash and dry cycles.
Tom Dempsey, oceans programme director at The Nature Conservancy in California, said: “This report helps us begin to understand microfibre emissions in pre-consumer textile manufacturing and how we can advance ocean health. Previously most of the focus and research on microfibre emission has been on the consumer use and loss during laundering, but now we are starting to see that the magnitude of the problem is similar at the pre-consumer stage.”
These pre-consumer emissions are projected to increase by 54% by 2030. The report outlines recommendations, along with regulatory steps, that could address 90% of pre-consumer emissions.
Recommendations include:
• Better understanding the relative emissions of microfibers at each manufacturing step (from fibre to yarn to fabric to garment).
• Developing microfibre control technologies and codifying best practices.
• Scaling these solutions to Tier 1, 2 and 3 suppliers via a combination of regulatory and brand or retailer-led action.
• Continuing to raise industry, government and consumer awareness of the topic.
Mr Dempsey added: “The good news is that with a few powerful steps - ranging from development of fibre control technology and establishing best practices for suppliers to the continued work in materials innovation - collectively we can make a massive impact in reducing pre-consumer microplastic emissions into the ocean.”
Sophie Mather, executive director at The Microfibre Consortium, said the urgency to work collaboratively on the issue is escalating. “The Microfibre Consortium is supporting the development of supplier-based guidance, encouraged that an aligned approach within manufacturing could scale impact far greater than steps taken at the consumer level,” she added.
Read WSA’s indepth look at the topic, Moves to minimise microfibre shedding, in the Features section.
Image: gryffyn m on Unsplash
