Heriot-Watt University researchers develop system to combat microplastic pollution in fashion

A research team at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, led by Lisa Macintyre, associate professor of textiles at Heriot-Watt’s School of Textiles has developed a grading system to help fight microplastic pollution in the fashion industry.

More concretely, the researchers have developed ‘the world’s first visual fibre fragmentation scale’, as per a release from the university.

The new grading system is a result of four years of research. It assesses the volume of fibre fragments shed from different clothing materials using a five-point scale. Thousands of tiny fibres can be shed from certain types of clothing through daily wear and tear, and the laundry process for instance.

In the study, the research team graded the volume of fragments from each type of clothing material between one and five, with grade one representing the highest volume of shed fibres and grade 5 representing the least.

According to the Heriot-Watt academics, the new method is faster and more cost effective when processing a large volume of materials than alternative techniques such as the one used by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), for instance.

‘This holds significant advantages to manufacturers as they can quickly identify low shedding materials and select these for further testing to determine their suitability for garment production,’ the release reads.

The research project has been funded through Heriot-Watt University’s James Watt Scholarship. The goal of this scholarship is to advance research for the benefit of society. Heriot-Watt University publishes research on fighting microplastic pollution in fashion

Commenting on the news in a release, head researcher Lisa Macintyre said: “The microplastics problem is massive. Fashion and textiles is one of the biggest sources of secondary microplastics in the environment with fragments of plastic fibres, like polyester and nylon, being shed from clothing.

“There are fibre fragments absolutely everywhere, from icebergs to the deepest ocean to human lungs and our food, they’re in everything.

“Visual scales are already used in the fashion industry to measure how much bobbling a material may suffer on its surface for example or, perhaps the most well-known is the grey scale, which measures colour fading or staining, but there was no such tool for fibre shedding.

“This project aims to change that and allow manufacturers to not only make better choices in production but also to communicate to their customers in a very simple and straightforward way, the typical amount of fibres shed from a garment.”

“Our methodology is simple and cost effective,” Sophia Murden, a final-year PhD student in fibre fragmentation testing at Heriot-Watt University who was also involved in the study, said.

She continued: The filters used to collect fibre fragments from laundry wastewater can be graded against our five-point scale, which surprisingly is more accurate at assessing very low levels of fragmentation than the equivalent method of weighing fibres.

“The ultimate aim is for manufacturers to choose materials that are going to have the least impact on our environment but also allow consumers to make an informed decision when they buy their clothing,” the young researcher said.

Dr Macintyre added on her part: “The next stage for us is to try and get some kind of industry agreement. Currently, we don’t have an ‘acceptable fragmentation’ rate for clothing but that’s not unusual.”

“The environment is an important issue, and we’d want to get key industry leaders and policymakers to sit down and start agreeing standards, perhaps even legislating against high shedding materials,” she concluded.

The findings of the study have featured in a new paper, entitled, ‘Low-cost, high-throughput quantification of microplastics released from textile wash tests: Introducing the fibre fragmentation scale’, published in the Cambridge Prisms: Plastics journal on November 19.