Fleece: "the biggest environmental problem you've never heard of"

Or just plan to hand wash it or limit it’s washing machine exposure.

Or install the filters sold to septic tank owners to address this problem.

They need to design plastic so it degrades

If animals eat it, it would just be food

Or at least bacteria would eat it so it doesn’t accumulate in the environment and over years gradually become a huge problem

On that note, scientists did recently discover a plastic bottle eating bacteria not long ago. I guess the microfiber plastic could be a great appetizer:

http://phys.org/news/2016-03-newly-bacteria-plastic-bottles.html

It seems filters available today will not solve it. You can catch the microfibers with some filters but it will catch all other dirt etc as well and be unworkable. And what to do with what you collected from the filter to make sure its not reaching the environment anyway? (Read the Guardian link in the treehugger link.)

Handwash and minimize use is probably what you can do for now.

Things like the link below I don’t believe in at all, except as a way to make you feel better when you continue as before – and that has seldom been any good for the environment:

Most days you can simply go home and dry your things and then you probably don’t need fleece. Its really only when your out in wet cold conditions for days the alternatives really doesn’t work as well.

don’t wash your fleece?

“don’t wash your fleece?”

This is the most practicable solution.  Eventually the garment will reach a sort of stench plateau at which point maintenance drops to near zero – a veritable win for the ULBPacker and our Oceans.

at least other humans will leave you alone?

and bugs won’t even know you’re there?

I find I get a lot less lint in the dryer after washing in a front loader than in a top-loader.  So I suspect the gentler handling results in fewer fibers in the wastewater as well.

thank you for sharing this. i had no idea.

note also that fleece basically lasts forever (more or less)

so you can easily wear it (with a few repairs) for a decade or two daily …. rather than constantly throwing things out

unlike synth which you throw out after a few years of daily use … or those UL down jackets whoses 7-15D shells come apart few years of constant daily use …

i think everyone in a cold wet climate has decade old well worn fleeces that do the job just fine…

;)