…yes, microfiber from the clothes we wear is a significant contaminant..It seems now that recycling plastic after its end life can only be part of the solution, because enough plastic particles also fall off during the life of an object.
A few years ago I introduced the environmental threat of man made synthetic dust as a contaminant.
https://74fdc.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/man-made-dust-as-a-contaminant/
But it just occurred to me that textiles also shed tiny fibers like dust, so the impact of synthetic particles to the natural environment will go way beyond the dust created by car tyres.
So what can be done? If only I knew! There are front end and back end solutions. Change the make-up of material, or develop ways to contain the dust particles it becomes.
When possible, I lean toward front end proactive solutions. Imagine if garment materials could be organic with a second life as nutrients to the soil we farm on, or the wildlife that eats/absorbs it. Imagine taking your old clothes to a feedlot to be processed into protein supplements for cows?
If it must leak into the natural environment, why can’t we make pollution a nutrient?
“waste does not exist, only wasted resources.” – Nancy Judd
How about biomaterials as nutrients!
If you think about it everything eventually breaks down, either from UV light from the sun, from heat, humidity, or attrition. A day come, when most of the dust which we breath will be industrially created, so how will it affect our health? Will we be encouraged to filter our personal air, wearing fashionable masks and putting advanced filters on our windows? Or can we make industrially made dust healthy and inert instead?
74 FOOTWEAR DESIGN CONSULTING 