We're Eating Plastics From Our Own Dirty Laundry (vice.com)

Every time you wash your fleece jacket or other synthetic clothing, microscopic synthetic fibres are released and end up in our food supply and drinking water. From a report: These microfibres are so small -- visible only under a microscope -- that they bypass municipal filtration systems and are consumed by fish and other marine life. A team of women from Waterloo, Ontario is looking to solve that problem. They've designed something that looks a lot like a dryer sheet for your laundry machine. You'd be able to drop this reusable sheet, called PolyGone, into the laundry machine with your dirty clothes. It attracts and traps the microfibres so they can be recycled. They presented their work at the annual AquaHacking conference at the University of Waterloo on Wednesday. "With these fibres entering our food system and ending up on our plates, we are essentially eating polluted laundry," said co-founder Lauren Smith at the conference. The event saw five teams, including hers, compete for tens of thousands of dollars and entry into several local incubators and accelerator centres. Smith has a Masters degree in sustainability management from UW, specializing in water.

Comments

Re:okay we get it, we eat plastic

[Scarletdown]

This comes across as yet another scare article with the dual purpose of keeping the masses terrified of the world around them and to hopefully sell this new product that is coming out.

The Dryer Is The Wrong Place to Address This

[crunchygranola]

They need a solution for municipal water systems so all the plastic from everybody gets trapped in one place.