The Microfibre Mysteries: What Are They?

Several weeks back, after a post by a researcher, Elliot Bland, at The Microfibre Consortium, I created a series of Linkedin polls to get an idea for how people understand terminology around microfibres. 

I was reasonably surprised by the results. And I put them to Elliot, who may have been a tad more surprised than I was! But we both agree that this is really problematic. This is what Elliot had to say;

"Awareness around the topic is still developing, and the lack of consistent terminology is surely hampering progress. It creates confusion for the public and complicates efforts to develop regulation."

This is something a good friend of mine from The Knowledge Nexus, Niall Maplesden, agrees with. Although for slightly different reasons. One of his arguments is that no Jo Bloggs has any idea what 70,000 microfibres look like. Rather, we need to give it in weight. If someone wears a uniform every day for 5 days a week, and you are able to say that, washing this uniform every week for a year releases enough microfibres in weight to make a t'shirt. Well, then you (might) get them to change laundering behaviour. Or insist on better materials.

This newsletter is going to delve into the 4 terminologies I polled people for, and to explain why I view this. I didn't ask Elliot for his opinion on these terminologies, but we hold the same viewpoint. This isn't about things being right or wrong. It's about ensuring everyone is on the same page.

The view of myself, Elliot (and other members of the MFC), is that microplastic fibres are just synthetic fibres. It doesn't matter on their size. But, for arguement's sake, because the last option is a bit of a trick question as that size is a yarn density and not a fibre density, I (and it's just me here) wouldn't consider a continuous filament yarn to be a microplastic fibre. I think that would fall under general microplastic in the same way we view microplastic pollution for packaging.

If you have a sweater that is made of synthetics but is made to look like wool, and you pull a 5cm fibre from that sweater, that is a microplastic fibre.

The definition that the MCF hold is that microfibres are all fibres that are shed from fabric, not just ones that are less than 5mm in length.

And how you spin the yarn will impact how much microfibre shedding that we get. Which is often a whole fibre in the case of ring spinning, but a broken fibre in the case of open end rotor spinning, because this one has fibres wrapped around that are solely responsible for keeping fibres in their place. You can read more about how production process impact shedding here.

Defining microfibre pollution as all fibres shed from fabric is important when creating regulations for the production process. Which is where most of the fibre pollution is created, regardless of the spinning process. 

One of the reasons I think it's super important to have a definition that covers all fibre compositions, not just synthetics, is that 90% of our dyestuffs and coatings are polymer based. Both pollution and degradation time is impacted by these polymer additions, regardless of whether the fibre is natural or not.

So this is the only poll where the majority and those from the MFC align! You could argue that this is a misleading question, given that broken fibres encompass all of the other 3 options as well! But I wanted to make the point that it doesn't matter at what point they break. (Although how you would know they were broken in some instances I'm not so sure).

However, there was a comment from a textile waste designer who pointed out something that is occurring in academic research. Micro is a measurement. But what we haven't defined is what is it a micro measurement of. 

On reflection I do think that this is misleading of the academic community to use. Because fibres come in all sorts of densities and lengths. To put measurements on this could rule out a significant portion of microfibre pollution. So unless they plan on doing a study to ensure we capture all microfibre sizes and lengths, it's a semantic argument. 

OK, so last one! I know this has been a lot!

The Oxford Dictionary has fibrous as meaning 'to look like fibres', and microplastics are synthetics. 

This is a bit of a pedantic one in my opinion, which is why I put it in! Because, ultimately, we need definitions that hold our own industry to account, not encompass other other industries. Or perhaps move the dial on responsibility. 

So in this instance, it's very much synthetic fibres that are used in clothing or other textiles. Plastic threads used in cables for example. Not our problem to solve!

Since this came out in the newsletter, and LinkedIn, the MFC have updated their glossary, so we can all be on the same page.. Because without centralised language, we won't be able to come to agreements on solutions or restrictions. 

Thanks for reading this! Well done if you made it to the end! And a huge thanks for Elliot for starting, and continuing, the conversation.