Lolwut? How’s about YOU show YOUR math?
It’s 74-121,000 particles PER PERSON per year, not per country.
The funny thing about nanoparticles are that they’re really small, which means you get a whole bunch of them per litre. Actually, not that funny. It’s right there in the name.
Why on earth are you shilling for Small Plastic? What kind of kickbacks and “stipends” are you getting? I hope they’re worth selling out your kid’s futures for.
That is part of the solution. People nowadays tend to wash clothes far more than really necessary. It’s so easy to throw them in the washing machine.
Ironically, plastic clothes probably do need to be washed more. Polypropelene thermal underwear reeks after a few days, whereas superfine merino is fine even after a month or so in the bush. Not “going out to a formal dinner” fine, but certainly much better than the “omfg my own smell is making me vomit” you get with polyprops.
The fact that it is of popular concern now (with some) means that it is already too late.
It doesn’t work like that. People love inventing thresholds and saying “it’s too late” once you pass them. Same with climate. In reality, the more we pollute the worse the effect. All the plastic we’ve already spread is bad, but how much we spread in the future will matter a lot too.
I imagine there will evolve microbes to decompose this plastic sooner or later. It is a nice source of food if you got the right enzymes to break it down.
I think I’ve just encountered an optimist in the wild.
While I agree we are royally screwed (in multiple ways) I disagree about the straws vs lawn chairs comparison.
Straws are everywhere. Law chairs mostly end up at a waste facility when broken, because they are too heavy to be blown away. There they get burned (which is the only way to get rid of plastics, though not with it’s own set of problems) or they end up in a landfill, which is still better than spread as microparticles.
Banning any single use plastics (plastic cutlery, plastic ‘party’ cups, straws, plastic bags) would be a great idea. Just look around you in any city on earth.
Still, the clothing-lint problem is a touch one. I think I read the same conclusions in a german study a few years back. On a related note, I read somewhere that a large part (the largest part? can’t rmemeber) of the microplastics in the baltic sea was car tire particles, which are even more impossible to get rid off than clothing lint (filters on all highway sewers?)
I myself try to use only natural fibers and use the clothes as long as possible (repairing them instead of buying new ones for example). Cotton growing is very problematic as well, though. And sheep are a problem because of the methane. On top of that western culture is obsessed with cleanliness. Most people could easily wash their clothes half as many times without adverse effects.
Sometimes when I’m in a cynical mood I think the main problem is that there are just too many people on the planet and it will inevitably sort itself out in the least pleasant way.
/rambling
It’s nowhere near inert. People used to think that you could play with mercury cause it was fun, or that nuclear war was survivable. Your body chemistry can’t duck and cover this crap.
Asbestos may be an even better analogy. Just inert fibres, how can they harm anyone? CFC:s is another example of a perfectly safe chemical.
The basic rule should be that unless you can show how it is degraded into natural components, assume that anything we make will accumulate until it sooner or later reach concentrations where it is harmful.
decent furnace filters would probably work but…they would probably require frequent replacement.
@Garymon Hah before I folded out the comments I was gonna say the same thing!
What’s your prop?
Patagonia has recognized its role here and is working the problem.
As @mallyboon pointed out, and as Patagonia recommends, there’s Guppyfriend as a washing bag to corral plastic fibers from whatever you put in the bag, then put in the washer.
Patagonia also has recommended this washing machine “permanent” filter:
https://www.septicsafe.com/washing-machine-filter/
… as @Lexisaurus mentioned upthread (oops! missed that on first read, sorry)
What we learned
Our testing resulted in these important findings:
- Textiles shed between 31,000 and 3,500,000 fibers per load during normal laundering in household washing machines.
- Not all textiles shed equally. For example, ‘fluffy’ textiles like fleece, as well as textiles made of spun staple yarns and textiles pre-treated with brushing are the highest-shedding types. These findings will be important for designing new fabrics that perform well but release less microfiber pollution.
- Some fabrics shed a large amount during the very first wash, and then shed little. This fact suggests that a pre-treatment during manufacturing may be able to capture and recycle what would otherwise go down consumers’ drains.
Updates since that February 2019 posting:
Microfiber cloths…
… are also a big problem:
https://storyofstuff.org/blog/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-microfiber-pollution/
Also problematic is antimony, a heavy metal, present in most PET even from first use (prior to being incorporated into recycled fiber fleeces, or recycled fiber carpeting, or recycled fiber insulation such as Thinsulate ).
If you are of a mind to reduce your exposure, or arguably more importantly the exposure of children or if you are trying to recover from a life-threatening illness, to contaminants, consider reducing the plastics footprint in your living [and breathing] space wherever possible to reduce your body burden.
https://www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/problem/bodyburden.html
If you believe that plastic is inert, as my father had (PhD Organic Chemistry, Northwestern University), and “just passes right through the human body” well heck don’t give any of this another thought.
We recently installed a full water filtration system (RO) for our drinking water supply. I have begun the process of mailing or dropping off all our fleece back to Patagonia, LL Bean, etc. with a short note explaining why. We have switched to wool replacements (which are highly susceptible to moths but oh well) and some down “sweaters” (Marmot and REI).
ETA: typos and more typos
ETA 2.5: just noticed upthread the mention of the laundry filter
Look into Mirazyme. Great for restricting the funk to the earbuds.
There are no simple solutions to our environmental problems. There is only a resolution set of “best possible choices.”
From the Department of Yeah, But Not Simple:
Thanks for the link to the filter. I bought one, and may buy some for other family members who are into the same outdoorsy stuff.
Also mealworms!
Wow. 
When I was in China, some street food vendors were offering various fried salted insects. I can’t remember whether mealworms were on offer. I remember grasshoppers on bamboo skewers.
But if humans can eat mealworms who can eat plastic, maybe there’s a sustainable closed-loop worth taking a good hard look at, because there’s hungry people all over the planet…
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1748-5967.2009.00237.x
empty the tray
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