World’s first visual grading system developed to combat microplastic fashion pollution

More than 14 million metric tons of microplastics are estimated to be lying on the ocean floor with the fashion industry among the worst pollutants.

But a new project led by textile experts at Heriot-Watt University in the Scottish Borders, is aiming to make fashion labels and consumers alike more environmentally aware when manufacturing and buying new clothes.

For four years, a small team headed by Dr. Lisa Macintyre, associate professor of textiles at the University’s School of Textiles and Design in the Galashiels campus, has overseen painstaking research to co-develop the world’s first visual “fiber fragmentation scale.”

The five-point scale assesses the volume of fiber fragments shed from different clothing materials, with observers visually grading each between one and five. Grade one having the highest volume of shed fibers to grade five having the least.

This new method is faster and more cost effective when processing a large volume of materials than compared with alternative techniques. This holds significant advantages for manufacturers as they can quickly identify low shedding materials and select these for further testing to determine their suitability for garment production. Existing methods, such as those used by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), are more expensive and time-consuming.

The findings have featured in a new paper, entitled, “Low-cost, high-throughput quantification of microplastics released from textile wash tests: Introducing the fiber fragmentation scale,” and published in the journal Plastics.

Dr. 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 fibers, like polyester and nylon, being shed from clothing.

“There are fiber 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 gray scale, which measures color fading or staining, but there was no such tool for fiber 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 fibers shed from a garment.”

Thousands of tiny fibers can be shed from some clothing through daily wear and tear, including laundry. They are typically very thin, ranging in size from a fraction of a millimeter to several centimeters in length. Despite their small size, they can inflict substantial harm on ecosystems, animals, and human health, potentially leading to cellular damage and inflammation.

In testing their new scale, the academics used a machine containing eight separate canisters, known as a “rotawash.”

Textile samples were placed within the canisters, filled with water and then churned to replicate a washing machine cycle. The wastewater was then filtered, allowing the testers and observers to visually grade the shed fibers against the scale.

Some 46 testers from the fashion industry, university students and the public volunteered in the project, grading about 100 samples over two years.

Sophia Murden is in her final year studying for a Ph.D. in fiber fragmentation testing at Heriot-Watt University. She has been working alongside Dr. Macintyre in developing the fiber fragmentation scale and says this is the first time that a visual scale has been developed.

She said, “Our methodology is simple and cost effective. The filters used to collect fiber 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 fibers.

“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.”

If adopted by industry, the fiber fragmentation scale could be displayed on clothing labels, similar to the way many U.K. food manufacturers display calorie information on packaging.

Dr. Macintyre adds, “We’ve already been in contact with the likes of Helly Hansen and Lochcarron of Scotland who are very supportive of what we are doing.

“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.”