Microplastics Problem:
Problem:
- If you drank a glass of water today, there is a 95% chance you ingested microplastic
fiber. - The average person eats five grams of microplastic every week, which is equivalent in
weight to eating a credit card every single week.
. 52 credit cards worth of microplastic per year - Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic smaller than 5 mm in diameter
- They are able to enter our environment in one of two ways: Primary source or
secondary source. - The primary sources of microplastics are textile abrasion (plastic coming off from our
clothes in washing) & tire abrasion (plastic coming off from our tires while driving and
accelerating) - Textile abrasion accounts for 35% of the microplastic that reaches the environment,
while tire abrasion accounts for 28% of the microplastic that reaches the environment. - The secondary sources of microplastics include bottles, wrappers, and other large
plastics. These plastics enter the environment through litter or poor waste
management. Over time, they gradually degrade into smaller and smaller pieces until
eventually becoming microplastics. - 1.5 million trillion microplastics are now present in our oceans. More fibers than stars
that exist in the Milky Way. - These microplastics are having drastic impacts on our health and the health of our
oceans.
Health & Environmental Problem:
- Human ingestion of microplastics is associated with and linked to:
- Autism
- Early Puberty
- Malignancies
- Breast Cancer
- Colon Cancer
- Humans are now ingesting microplastic as a part of their natural diet, whether its in
food, salt, beer, or tap water. They are everywhere: - Average number of plastic particles consumed each week from common foods:
o Drinking Water – 1769 particles per week
o Fish – 182 particles per week
o Beer – 10 particles per week - These microplastics aren’t just impacting us. They are also impacting our oceans.
- The ocean has sequestered 40% of the total carbon emitted since WWII, and the oceans
must be protected. - At this rate, there will soon be more plastic by mass in the ocean than fish.
Textile Problem:
- The single largest source of microplastic into the environment is our clothing.
- Our clothing is made up of 60% plastic, whether it’s polyester, polyamide, acrylic, plastic
dyes, or plastic additives, there is no escaping plastic in the clothing industry. - After every load of laundry run in the dryer, we have to remove lint from the lint filter in
the dryer. - What most people don’t realize is that lint is actually made of about 60% plastic, and the
same amount of lint comes off in the washing machine BUT there is nothing there to
catch it. - Our clothes are made of millions of fibers woven together, and when they are spun very
quickly against the walls of a washing machine, millions of tons per year are emitted
into the environment from the world’s laundry
o 180 million metric tons of plastic come off of our clothes and are emitted into
the environment every single year
