Electrolux has created a new special filter to retain up to 90 percent of the microplastics that are released during washing in the washing machine and which constitute one of the most dangerous pollutants for our seas. To understand how alarming this phenomenon is, it will be enough to reflect on the data of Electrolux report starting from the amount that can come from washing an average family every year: up to two plastic bags.
Circa half a million tons of plastic microfibers – says the report – are released into the sea every year with the washing of fabrics. According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), this is equivalent to the dispersal of three billion polyester T-shirts every year. Made with at least 50% recycled plastic, it consists of a cartridge with a fine-mesh filter that captures the microplastic fibers released by synthetic clothing.
To clean the filter, users can throw the microplastic fibers into the household waste. The filter works with Electrolux, AEG and Zanussi washing machines, fixed to the wall next to the machine. If it is true that the awareness of having polluted the planet's waters is by now widespread everywhere and increases as "atypical" environmental phenomena increase, it is also true however that - according to research findings - the knowledge of the causes is very low and in particular of the fact that the microplastics of synthetic clothing are among the heaviest and most looming.
In fact, the concept of "synthetic" has lost its original connotation, that is, as a result of production processes that generate plastics. Few know, for example, that nylon and polyester they are plastic fibers. As for Europe, the delay is dramatic since the alarm of microplastics in the seas has been known for at least a decade but only France, in the futile wait for the European Environment Agency to take some measures, has launched a trick.
In fact, from 2025, washing machines will have to be equipped with a dedicated filter for microfibres, with an estimated 80% reduction in this type of emissions. As for the Electrolux research, the quantitative data was collected between 15.000 adults in fifteen European markets. OnePoll, a leading market research company, managed the research in collaboration with Electrolux and its partners. The survey was conducted between 15.10.2021 and 10.11.2021 with data collected from the general population in the following countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Data have been weighted for each country to ensure an accurate representation for age, marital status, income/social class, ethnicity and region.
