Make Your Own Microplastic Laundry Filter
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- Опубліковано 26 сер 2024
- 1/3 of Microplastics in the ocean are from our laundry water. They are now in every ocean but also our groundwater, drinking water, and even food.
In this video I show you how you can make a very simple and cheap filter for your washing machine to help reduce the microfibres you flush down the drain and potentially into the ocean.
It's something you can do today and a great project to do with your kids.
Microfibres can be synthetic or natural and they are smaller than 5mm. As fibres tumble through the sewer and then the sewage treatment plant process, they can break into smaller pieces. A sewage treatment plant does not capture them all, therefore many microfibres end up in the sewage discharge water.
A key problem is that they have an electrical charge that attracts pollutants to stick to them. Microfibres are rapidly entering our food chain and carrying with them the pollutants attached to them.
Making a simple laundry filter is a great project for Scouts, schools, groups etc to make and sell at fairs or for fundraisers.
There are quality commercial filters and alternatives available and I encourage you to checkout:
www.coraball.com
www.guppyfriend.com
www.ocean-remedy.com
If you have any questions or suggestions, contact me at: david@sustainableoceans.com.au
so cute and lovely
I just use a ladies pantyhose and attach it to the end of the discharge hose with a rubber band. Cheap, simple and works really well.
This is great! Going to try it.
Documentary seaspiracy
Good idea , very useful
hey this is a great idea! Want to implement as soon as possible. Can I get links for the materials needed on Amazon or walmart or target maybe? I tried my local dollar store and they didn't have any of the necessary materials.
Thank you for posting this. I found your video a few months ago and it stayed in the back of my mind. I recently was gifted a portable washer and after seeing how little the built-in drain wasn't catching about 80% of the fibers/cat hair I remembered your video. Do you mind if I link your video in my description and give you credit for teaching me how to make my own version of your version (lol I forgot about the basket)?
Of course! And great to hear from you and hear your story. The more people we can promote this to the better! I was, and still am, shocked at how much the filter collects - pretty scary.
@@sustainableoceansint awww ty! I have it uploaded as unlisted until the morning, but your link is in the description. We try to do our best living more sustainable as best possible but with quarantine and some life changes it unfortunately paused. That is how I found your video. I also subscribed too. Thanks!
@@sustainableoceansint it is public :)
@@LadyMaReesLife Thanks!!!
Of course! Share as much as you want. The more that reduce micro plastics down the drain the better.
I just can't get into buying more plastic to deal with a plastic problem. It seems counterintuitive.
Understand but plastic is not always the bad guy, its what we do with it and how we dispose of it. When you run this filter just once and see what it captures, it will blow you away. Every wash a huge amount of fibres are going down the drain. So I'm now motivated to use plastic to reduce what I'm contributing to the problem of fibres in the ocean and waterways.
@@davidlennon7196 It's such a dilema. Thank you for caring about the plastic problem.
like nr 100 :) Thank you for sharing how you made this, I'm going to try it and I sent it to some of my friends too :)
Thanks Clara! That's less micro plastics down the drain!
This is very useful, as microplastik/microfibre filter isn't easily found in my country, can I use this video on my instagram page?
Of course!
Wow that caught a lot! I wonder if using non plastic materials would still work well? I'm thinking a metal colander, steel wool, and possibly a bag made of some natural material like straw, bamboo, tree bark fibers, etc.
Its really scary how much comes from one wash! I never realised. Blows my mind. Your idea could work except the steel wool would rust. But the straw and other woody things could turn to a big stinky mush as they hold water and decompose, plus have bacteria from the laundry that will breed in the fibres.
@@sustainableoceansint yeah I guess that wouldn't be ideal unless there was a way to quickly dry it all.
Thank you so much for this! May I ask how the 6 Basic Science Process skills were used in this invention?
You've got me stumped there! I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the 6 basic science process skills! :)
It's okay hehe. Btw, I used this invention for my school project which is why I asked. Anyways, thank you for this again!
What do you do with the filter construction once it has caught all the fibers that it can catch?
Hi Des, I throw it out or vacuum the dry 'fluff' out of the filter. Takes quite awhile to reach capacity. Have you tried making one?
@@sustainableoceansint yes, it has been attached to my machine for several months now.
@@des6853 Well done! They catch a lot don't they!
@@sustainableoceansint yes, they definitely do their job.
@@sustainableoceansint but I do wonder about just throwing it out. Cuz 1) I gotta go buy more of those plastic nets/mesh and then I can only hope that all the microfibers I collected don't get washed back into a water supply or ecosystem once I throw them out.
Does this apply to hand washing ?
You mean hand washing clothes? Yes, that can still produce small fibres from synthetics but not as much as the rough and tumble washing machine cycle. I would worry about your machine wash.
But do you know that liquid detergent is also microplastic?
No I didn't know that and haven't seen any mention of that. How is it a microplastic? I've heard about the issue of the small beads in face wash being an issue.
@@sustainableoceansint in many detergents it was found to contain approximately 178,000 microbeads in one milliliter of detergent. That's equal to over 2.5 million microbeads per load. Also Sodium citrate, tetrasodium EDTA and acrylic polymers are commonly used in liquid laundry detergents and they are microplastics in liquid form.
@@RusinMM That's not good! Wonder why that hasn't been mentioned in any of the microplastic research I read.
This is silly, who cares about microplastics!
The water treatment facilities have their own cleaning and filter... So therefore this is silly!
Every little extra bit helps and also it helps to keep the drain from clogging. 😎
@@nicholaslandolina you are 100% certain that all facilities everywhere have the proper filtration systems to separate out microplastics like microfiber before they reach major water supplies?
@@nicholaslandolina and that's why 94% of American tap water and 76% of European tap water contain micro plastics post treatment. Not to mention there have been recent findings of microplastics in human blood.
By the way... Tap water treatment wouldn't do anything to mitigate the water that LEAVES your house and goes back into the water table/oceans.