UKH

Are there any UK models with such filters? Seemingly compulsory on new models in France fron 2025.

Anyone using the Planetcare attachable filter?

Ta!

I asked about microplastic filters when we bought ours and might as well have asked if it would work without an electric supply. Really disappointed.

Would be interested in affordable options for retrofitting.

What happens after you filter it? Surely it all ends up in the water cycle anyway?

Would it? I don't know how the filters work, but if they are just a sieve, then surely the sieve can eventually be cleaned and its contents put in the bin from where they would eventually go to where things in the bin end up, or the whole filter goes in the bin and ends up in the same place. Neither possibility may be great for the environment, but does either imply ending up in the water cycle?

I understand that some fabrics are needed for specialist uses (like high wicking running t shirt) might need to be synthetic, or for that matter the huge benefit of elastic blends (who has worn sock suspenders, or those elastic things for socks with the tag/tassel in scout uniforms, lycra killed them off in the '60s)  but as a general principle... would/should there be equal or more discussion about owning a lesser quantity of better clothes (including more natural materials) rather than the disposable "Primark" society we have today.

No idea if the statistic that in UK most items of clothing are worn on average 7-10 times is true, but the worrying thing is that it could be. To be that cheap and disposable there needs to be questionable ethics in the manufacturing and cheap synthetic or synthetic mix fabric

Filters sound impractical and probably a liability, if they're fine enough to filter *micro* plastics they'll rapidly get clogged by everything from limescale flakes to any old fluff to that tissue my wife left up a sleeve before putting it  in the machine on a dark coloured load 😡

Unfortunately, I think I'd have to take a pair of kitchen scissors or snips to remove the filter, while keeping the filter rubber edge probably needed to act as a gasket, if one was in a washing machine of mine.

The one I'm looking for fixes externally and is easily replaced etc.

Not sure of the relevance of your Primark V quality to the issue ...

The relevance would be avoiding or reducing the amount of clothes that have plastic/synthetic content and/or are made from fabric not intended to be particularly durable, as a higher priority than filter use

Be interesting if you get the filter... to let us know if it clogs impractically quickly needing very very frequent cleaning 

Well most of my clothing is worn 5 - 10 years aside from the obvious socks n'underwear. Some considerably longer. I recently replaced some moth eaten 7 year old t-shirts.

Since reading about microplastics most of my new outdoor clothing is merino wool or cotton, except hardshells. I've recently sent away an old Patagonia softshell for repair under their repair programme.

I also actively resist having my clothes washed if not actually smelling or badly stained! Sometimes pulling gear out of the laundry basket.

But surely the best option is use what already exists by buying from charity shops or used on FB or eBay? At which point, you have less choice in what your clothes are made from. I still reckon that second hand synthetics are better environmentally than new cottons. New (pretty much) anything will be worse than using something which already exists. 

Alternative: Only buy clothes and bedding made from natural fibres and there are no micro-plastics.  

I’ve been buying light weight merino shirts and underwear for 15 years instead of synthetic clothes.  It doesn’t develop the stink synthetics do, it wicks water better and is perfectly comfortable.  It’d be great if we had more merino herds in Western Europe to cut down on the milage.  Our heavy winter blanket is also merino.  That’s now a decade old and is going strong.

I use guppy bags for trapping micro plastics when washing our synthetic garments 

Microplastic gets the headlines but microfibres should! The natural cellulose fabrics shed 2 to 4 times as many fibres but it was assumed that they bio-degrade rapidly whereas the synthetic ones take ages so all microfibres collected were assumed to be plastic.

However analysing samples from the oceans tell us that only 8% of the fibres are synthetic and the rest cotton (50%) wool (12%) and the rest silk, linen etc. One possibility is that dyes and other treatments slow the rate of degredation of the natural fibres and we are seeing the results of centuries of their use.

Which are more effective at collecting harmfull pollutants and moving them into the foodchain has yet to be thoroughly examined.

I suppose it may be practical to make a washer dryer that distills all water, perhaps at low pressure, to eject all waste as dry solids and use no water by circulating it.  Keeping the cost and energy use down would be difficult.  But zero water and pollution are possible.  Easier to do in space.

I agree with you and flinticus on not over washing, keeping clothes for longer, second hand etc etc. Monday this week I had a favourite pair of shorts start to wear through around the seam under the crotch... so I patched it on the inside with a bit of old jeans material, now I can get a load more use out of them.

But understand that unfortunately our comments make us outliers

My blankets are made from non-Merino wool, and I've had one of them at least from buying it in Philadelphia, where I lived for a year, over 35 years ago. So they don't necessarily have to be Merino.

I also use blankets, that the local public school (fee-paying) were throwing out, and had nothing wrong with them. They too are non-Merino.

I agree with all above, and do not wash clothes that often if not truly soiled or smelling. I wear shirts with stitching when the material has become ripped etc. Yet as CCTom says we are probably seen as quirky.

"Make do and mend" needs to come back into use. That was always said in our house when I was growing up.

I just assumed everything ends up getting washed down into the oceans, albeit maybe over decades/centuries?