Lots of microplastics in the ocean come from microplastics in our laundry.

You’ve notice that your old clothes and linens are thinner than when they were new. That’s because friction has worn away little bits of the fabric. Did you know that friction happens in your washer and dryer? That’s why you have to keep cleaning out your lint trap.

Whenever you wash synthetic fabrics, that lint includes microplastics. And your wash water and rinse water send a bunch from your laundry directly to the ocean. Not only that, your dryer blasts microplastics into the atmosphere.

The only way to eliminate microplastics in laundry is to stop washing synthetics entirely. For most of us, that’s not practical. Here are ten laundry tips we can use to reduce our contributions. 

Prefer natural fabrics

All clothes shed microparticles.

When natural fabrics shed, the microparticles are biodegradable. Nature knows exactly what to do with them. They present no environmental problems.

Polyester and nylon are plastics. They shed microplastics. If you can avoid them (easier said than done) you don’t have to worry about microplastics in your laundry.

What about rayon?

Rayon occupies a middle ground between natural and synthetic. It takes cellulose from wood, bamboo, or other plant, treats it chemically, and extrudes it through tiny holes to make thread. It is biodegradable. Whatever other environmental problems rayon has, it is not plastic. Therefore it, doesn’t shed microplastics.

Wash full loads / use less water for smaller loads

From ancient times, rubbing clothes on a rock or washboard loosened various kinds of grime from clothing. In other words, friction. In a modern washing machine, clothes submerged in water rub against themselves to loosen the grime.

We can’t avoid friction, but a small amount of clothing in a large amount of water makes the collisions more violent. It makes the clothing shed more. If you can’t wash a full load, set the washer to use less water.

Wash in cold water

Hot water causes more shedding than cold water. Washing in cold water also saves the energy needed to heat the water.  Modern detergents are formulated to work best in cold water.

Separate by fabric type, not color

New jeans or towels may release their dyes into the water and stain whatever white things are laundered with them. I haven’t bought new jeans or dark towels for a long time. The last times I did, I hand washed them long enough to release all that dye before putting them in the washer.

Most modern fabrics are color fast. Fabrics that aren’t stop releasing dye after a few washes. Therefore, washing dark clothes with light clothes does no harm.

Heavy fabrics cause light fabrics to shed more. Also, heavy fabrics dry more slowly than light fabrics. Washing them separately where possible not only reduces microparticles in the laundry but also reduces drying time for the light fabrics.

By the way, do not wash backpacks, shoes, or other heavy items with the rest of your laundry. They will pound out lots of microparticles, plastic or not, and shorten the life of your clothes and linens.

Wash for a shorter time

Most of us don’t get our clothes really dirty very often. My washer, at least, allows me to choose wash cycle time from two to ten minutes. Save the longer wash times for when you’ve been gardening. seriously spilled food, or otherwise gotten your clothes very dirty. Less time in the washer means less friction, not to mention less electricity.

Use less detergent

Detergent acts as a surfactant to loosen dirt and remove it from your clothes. Too much detergent doesn’t get your clothes any cleaner. It just removes more microparticles from your clothes and fails to rinse out completely.

Air dry

Once upon a time, laundry came out of the washing machine and went straight to the clothesline to dry in the sun. Of course, the sun wasn’t always shining. A clothesline doesn’t work well in the rain. But people with basements could string up clotheslines there.

Now, many homeowners’ associations forbid outdoor clotheslines. And in our convenience-addicted society, many people find them too much trouble.

But tumble dryers create more friction, therefore more wear and tear on clothes, and therefore more microfibers. Again, particles shed from natural fibers or rayon are biodegradable. But nearly everything these days has some polyester or nylon.

Microplastics blast out of the dryer vent into the atmosphere. And all the microplastics in the lint means you shouldn’t compost it.

Use microplastic filters

You can get a variety of filters that remove microplastics from wash water before it gets to the sewer. Unfortunately, no filter gets them all. A filter won’t substitute for preferring natural fabrics. Some filters attach to the discharge hose. Others work in the washer.

For example, you can put your synthetics in a Guppyfriend™ washing bag. Ironically, it’s made of plastic, but in the form of monofilaments, not threads. It is unlikely to shed its own microplastics in your laundry. It works in two ways. First, it reduces friction. Second, it captures microplastics within the bag, usually in a corner. Remove them by hand and put them in the trash.

Similarly, you can toss a Cora Ball™ in the washer. Again, it’s a plastic product designed to remove plastic from wash water. It traps about 26% of the microplastics from the wash water. It has lots of little rough loops on its surface to trap microplastics, hair, and other stuff that comes off your clothes. After 10-20 washes, dig the stuff out of the ball with your fingers and put it (the lint, not the ball!) in the trash.

If you need a new washer, prefer a front loader

American households have long preferred top-loading washing machines. Most of the rest of the world uses front-loading washing machines. A comparison of the two kinds shows that front-loaders get clothes cleaner with less wear and tear on the fabric. They use water more efficiently, too.

The main drawbacks are that front loaders are harder to repair when something goes wrong, and you can’t toss something in that you forgot once the cycle starts.

For the purposes of this article, clothes washed in top loaders shed about seven times as much microplastics in your laundry as clothes washed in front loaders.

Wear your clothes longer

This section has two laundry tips for the price of one.

First, get off the fast fashion merry-go-round if you’ve gotten on it. Fast fashion makes the latest styles available quickly and cheaply. Which means synthetic fabrics among other things. Then, when those styles go out of fashion, everyone throws them out and goes out and buys the newest fad.

This practice is wasteful on so many levels. When it comes to laundry, clothes shed the most the first half a dozen times or so they’re washed. Fast fashion hits the dumpster just at the time the clothes will start to shed less microplastics.

Buying clothes at a thrift shop likewise helps keep microplastics out of the ocean. Second-hand clothing has probably already been washed enough to be shedding less.

For sustainability’s sake, wear your clothes until they wear out.

Also, as I have said, we don’t really get our clothes very dirty in our sedentary lifestyles. You can wear everything but underwear two or three times before you really need to wash it. Each garment worn twice between washings releases half the microplastics in the laundry.

For further reading:

Thousands of tons of ocean pollution can be saved by changing washing habits / Northumbria University, PhysOrg. June 6, 2020