Bits of your laundry are ending up in the Arctic Ocean, study finds. Here’s how
On a journey along the Arctic Ocean, Canadian researchers collected bits of the sea and discovered pieces of microplastic smaller than sesame seeds scattered in all but one sample.
In a deeper analysis, the team learned that synthetic fibers made up about 92% of the microplastic pollution they picked up, with about 73% of that being polyester — a common plastic — that resembled the size and chemical composition of fibers from clothing.
Turns out people living in Europe and North America are polluting some of the most remote and pristine places in the world just by doing the laundry, according to the study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
While plastic has been found in packed Arctic ice, oceans, seafloor sediments and even inside the stomachs of numerous species across the food web, there’s limited information about the source, distribution and scale of contamination of these microplastics.
Now, scientists got a glimpse into how bits of our laundry are ending up in places like the North Pole.
“The striking conclusion here is that we now have strong evidence that homes in Europe and North America are directly polluting the Arctic with fibres from laundry (via wastewater discharge),” study lead author Peter Ross, vice president of research at Ocean Wise, a nonprofit organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia, said in a news release.
“Plastics are all around us, and while it would be grossly unfair to specifically point our finger at textiles as the only source of microplastics to the world’s oceans, we nonetheless see a strong footprint of polyester fibres that are likely to be largely derived from clothing,” Ross added.
The team traveled nearly 12,000 miles from the northern Norway city of Tromso to the North Pole and through the Canadian Arctic and Beaufort Sea, collecting a total of 26 near-surface seawater samples at 71 research stations in 2016. Some samples were picked up at depths of about 3,000 feet.
Almost three times more microplastics were found in the eastern Arctic compared to the west, the researchers said. They suggested that ocean currents in the Atlantic could be driving these plastic fibers to the east. Another mechanism behind the delivery could be systems within the atmosphere.
The conservation group said that homes in the U.S. and Canada could release about 968 tons of microfibers each year. That’s because a single item of clothing can release millions of plastic fibers during a normal wash. And part of the reason why they end up in oceans is that wastewater treatment plants fail to filter out these microplastics, they said.
There’s likely more plastic in the ocean than scientists have found so far, the researchers added, because particles smaller than 5 millimeters are difficult to analyze. That’s why there’s “evidence to suggest that smaller particles are also more abundant.”
The team said manufacturers can do their part by producing more sustainable clothing that shed less microplastic, while the government can update wastewater treatment plants to better filter the fibers before they wash into oceans.
North Americans and Europeans alike could also use products made with environmentally friendly fabrics such as organic cotton and make sure their washing machines have functioning lint traps.
This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 8:44 AM with the headline "Bits of your laundry are ending up in the Arctic Ocean, study finds. Here’s how."
