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90% of Great Lakes water samples have unsafe microplastic levels β report
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
199 points (98.5% liked)
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The two biggest sources of microplastics are car tires and clothing. If you care about reducing microplastics, you should try to not buy plastic clothing (polyester, nylon, etc.) and instead buy biodegrable fibers like cotton or wool. I don't know what to do about the tire thing except drive maybe drive less?
Not a personal solution but trains don't have tires, and busses probably consume less tires per person per km.
Oh?
And the noise, oh my fucking god, the noise!! My phone can measure accurately to 90dB and this thing hits 90 regularly.
If clothes are a very significant contributor, I'd like to see mandatory lint filters in new washing machines.
The snag is that the 'micro' in 'microplastics' means they're too small to reasonably or reliably capture without great expense - even at the industrial scales of sewage treatment plants.
See I thought about this and this is what I figured at first, but then it occurred to me that lint isn't actually microscopic. Some of it probably is, but I bet that the normal, trappable size lint escapes into the lakes via the sewage system and then degrades into microscopic plastics. Could be wrong but if this is true then filtering at the washer, using a mesh similar to the one for the dryer could be a significant help. If the numbers work of course.
Though where do you put the lint once filtered out? (Assuming most is filterable)
In your drinking water to make the process more efficient of course.
Fuck.
I think there is already a product that that will filter plastics out of the water out line on washing machine actually
Quite possibly. I think I recall something like that, but to be effective this has to be mandated to be included inside the washers themselves, similar to the lint filters in dryers.
Agreed. Would be nice to see that as a standard. But I'm sure they will fight tooth and nail to save the 10 dollars per unit it would cost