Airborne emissions of microplastic fibres from domestic laundry dryers
O'Brien, Stacey | Okoffo, Elvis D. | O'Brien, Jake W. | Ribeiro, Francisca | Wang, Xianyu | Wright, Stephanie L. | Samanipour, Saer | Rauert, Cassandra | Toapanta, Tania Yessenia Alajo | Albarracin, Rizsa | Thomas, Kevin V.
An emission source of microplastics into the environment is laundering synthetic textiles and clothing. Mechanical drying as a pathway for emitting microplastics, however, is poorly understood. In this study, emissions of microplastic fibres were sampled from a domestic vented dryer to assess whether mechanical drying of synthetic textiles releases microplastic fibres into the surrounding air or are captured by the inbuilt filtration system. A blue polyester fleece blanket was repeatedly washed and dried using the ‘Normal Dry’ program of a common domestic dryer operated at temperatures between 56 and 59 °C for 20 min. Microfibres in the ambient air and during operation of the dryer were sampled and analysed using microscopy for particle quantification and characterisation followed by Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (Pyr-GC/MS) for chemical characterisation. Blue fibres averaged 6.4 ± 9.2 fibres in the room blank (0.17 ± 0.27 fibres/m³), 8.8 ± 8.5 fibres (0.05 ± 0.05 fibres/m³) in the procedural blank and 58 ± 60 (1.6 ± 1.8 fibres/m³) in the sample. This is the first study to measure airborne emissions of microplastic fibres from mechanical drying, confirming that it is an emission source of microplastic fibres into air – particularly indoor air.
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