Microfiber - a by product of plastic
Updated: Apr 9, 2020
The microfiber – just a tiny microfiber, but is it?
The story of that tiny microfiber all started with plastic, and from there when we needed to recycle that plastic. The next step was that we came up with that miracle that we used for making all clothing items – polyester.
Soon, it was implemented into sweats, underwear, leisure suits, socks, yoga pants, you name it, and you are bound to have some or a lot of polyester in it.
But since polyester was cheap, those yoga pants, fleeces, underwear, all had one thing in common, and that was the fact that they were easily replaced, especially since they tend to lose that luster of new clothes so soon.
And, if you can easily replace an item with a new one that was quite cheap while at the same time you get to use the plastic that needed to be reused - as it was causing a pileup problem here or there - so why not? Some companies had made their business by recycling plastic for making polyester.
This became such a vast industry – we use any kind of plastic, especially all those bottles and empty plastic containers, and we end up having brand new clothes that are sold at unbelievable prices.
It seems great, right?
Plastic - Use it throw it
Drop in a bin
Take to a recycling factory
Take to a recycling factory
Wear it then Wash it
Throw it and back to the beginning......
Then, where is the catch, and what is the problem?
The problem is just the size of a microfiber times a billion!
· People are encouraged to use more plastic, after all, it is easy and cheap, and there is a way to reuse it as polyester – affordable clothing.
When clothing made of polyester is washed – microfiber or in other words, tiny pieces of plastic – microfibers – are washed out with the water.
Then, where is the catch, and what is the problem?
The problem is just the size of a microfiber times a billion!
· People are encouraged to use more plastic, after all, it is easy and cheap, and there is a way to reuse it as polyester – affordable clothing.
When clothing made of polyester is washed – microfiber or in other words, tiny pieces of plastic – microfibers – are washed out with the water.
Then, where is the catch, and what is the problem?
The problem is just the size of a microfiber times a billion!
· People are encouraged to use more plastic, after all, it is easy and cheap, and there is a way to reuse it as polyester – affordable clothing.
· When clothing made of polyester is washed – microfiber or in other words, tiny pieces of plastic – microfibers – are washed out with the water.
· Out it goes down the drain, and this happens every time we wash clothing from plastic bottles or brand new material.
· It is not just a few particles; it is more like hundreds of thousands per wash. That is quite a mess!
· Draining systems can’t catch them, they are that tiny so, they pass even through water treatment plants, and go out.
· Eventually, it is out there in the ocean – and there they act like micro sponges.
· They suck up pollutants around them – motor oil, pesticides.
· Next, they are in the fishes’ bellies.
· We eat the fish – nothing more to be said!
How many microfibers are we talking about – let’s say that an approximate estimate put them at more than 1.4 million trillion?
That is a lot of plastic, and more still coming – only we can stop that pileup – by cutting down to negligible, our use of plastic.