Microplastics Problem

Problem

If you drank a glass of water today, there is a 95% chance you ingested microplastic fiber. Microplastics are everywhere, they are in our food, water, environment, and they’re hard to avoid. The average person eats 5g of microplastics every week, which is equivalent in weight to a credit card! These plastics can enter our environment through primary or secondary sources. Primary sources include textile abrasion and tire abrasion. 35% of microplastics in our environment come from textile abrasion. Tire abrasion accounts for 28% of the microplastics in our environment. Secondary sources consist of the degradation of macro-plastics. When a plastic bottle, wrapper, or waste remain in the open environment, they shed plastic pieces. The plastics coming from the shedding of macro-plastics degrade over time until they become microplastics.

Human ingestion of microplastics is associated with and linked to:
Autism
Early Puberty
Malignancies
Colon Cancer
Humans are now ingesting microplastic as a part of their natural diet, whether it’s in food, salt, beer, or tap water, they are everywhere!

Average number of plastic particles consumed each week from common foods:

Drinking Water – 1769 particles per week
Fish – 182 particles per week
Beer – 10 particles per week
Microplastics have been found in our blood, deep lung tissue, and even in human placenta
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.

Health & Environmental Problem

Humans are now ingesting microplastic as a part of their natural diet, Whether it’s 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