Half a million tonnes of plastic microfibers shed during the washing of plastic-based textiles such as polyester, nylon, or acrylic end up in the ocean annually.

Notes:

The equivalent of 50 billion plastic water bottles - 16 times more than plastic microbeads from cosmetics.

See https://www.sustainablefashionacademy.org/podcasts/big-closets-small-planet/industry-update-microfibers-microplastics for refutation of this data

Primary Source:

Secondary Source:

2017 - International Union for Conservation of Nature, Primary microplastics in the oceans: A global evaluation of sources (2017), pp.20-21

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