What Does Your Washing Machine Have to do with Microfibers?

Synthetic microfibers are just one of many types of microplastic pollution; however, microfibers are one of the most common types of microplastic pollution that we find in the environment.

Where do they come from? There are likely many sources of microfibers to the environment, and they include clothing, furniture, carpeting, and cigarette butts.

They are ubiquitous. We find these tiny fibers in samples from headwater streams, rivers, soils, lakes, sediments, ocean water, the deep-sea, wildlife, arctic sea ice, seafood, drinking water and table salt. In our own samples from the Laurentian Great Lakes, our research lab sometimes find more than 100 microfibers in an individual fish. Such widespread exposure raises concerns about effects to wildlife and human health.

But, there’s good news! There are simple solutions to help reduce the number of microfibers that enter our environment each day. Some of these include changing the way we do our laundry–YEP–our laundry.

When we wash our clothing in the washing machine, little bitty fibers come off into the wash water. This is just like when fibers come off our clothing in the dryer and collect in the lint trap. YES, microfibers are indeed a major component of laundry lint! In the washing machine these fibers exit our homes with wash water and travel to a nearby wastewater treatment plant. There, many of them will settle into the sewage sludge, but some will remain in the final treated wastewater effluent that is released directly into local watersheds, lakes and oceans. Although washing our clothes in washing machines is just one source of microfibers to the environment, we know that it’s a significant source. For example, in the city of Toronto, we estimate as many as 23 to 36 trillion microfibers may be emitted to Lake Ontario watersheds each year!

So, coming back to the solutions—what can we do about it? Our research group wondered the same thing and decided to test multiple mitigation strategies for washing machines to see just how well they captured fibers in the wash, diverting them away from the environment.

What did we find? We found that technologies available on the market today work! Upon washing fleece blankets with and without a Lint LUV-R after-market filter (a, pictured above) or a Cora Ball (b, pictured above), we found a significant reduction in microfibers in washing machine effluent. The after-market filter reduced microfibers in washing machine effluent by 87% and the Cora Ball by 26%.

Our study suggests that these technologies are one effective way to reduce microfiber emissions to the environment. While more studies are needed to understand the contributions of microfibers from other sources and pathways to the environment, we know that washing machines are one pathway for microfibers to reach the environment. Why not help reduce emissions now by changing up your laundry habits today?

For more information, please read our paper published this year in Marine Pollution Bulletin.

Written by Dr. Chelsea Rochman, assistant professor at the University of Toronto and Scientific Advisor to Ocean Conservancy

No Silver Bullet Solution to Plastic Pollution

Plastic pollution has become so pervasive that it is found in seafood, bottled water, beer, table salt and even the air. Hundreds of animals become entangled in discarded plastic debris and fishing gear. Ingestion of plastics by marine organisms can hurt or kill them, and may also be acting as a pathway for the transfer of harmful contaminants through food-webs, with biological implications for all life affected. The economic costs of plastic pollution affecting tourism, fisheries and shipping sectors are estimated to be at least $8 billion USD annually.

Currently, the problem of plastic pollution is being met with a suite of mitigation strategies, such as single-use bans, improving recycling capacity and waste management, substitution of products with “eco-friendly” alternatives and more. These actions are currently being implemented at the national level but the problem is so enormous that the international community has recognized that more action is needed, and urgently. Still, little work is being done to evaluate the impact of these many mitigation strategies being proposed and implemented, and how their impacts will vary in different economic and societal contexts. Without this understanding, we risk wasting vast quantities of money, time, and social and political capital in attempting to preserve the integrity of the world’s ecosystems.

We are the Plastic Pollution Emissions Group

That’s how the Plastic Pollution Emissions Group (PlasticPEG) came about. Based out of the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), the work that we are doing will contribute to improving our understanding of the impacts of these reduction strategies, and inform governments of the most effective ways to contribute to improving the health of our oceans.

With a group of experts from across the world, including some from Ocean Conservancy, we aim to contribute to this knowledge gap by providing science-based evidence of the most effective strategies to reduce the leakage of plastic into our oceans. Our work will build on the inclusion of Plastic pollution in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and feed into an international agreement to establish a coordinated and effective strategy to drastically reduce plastic emissions into the environment.

How we will make a difference

We are conducting an evaluation of the impact of several plastic pollution management interventions. These include plastic-use reductions, broad-scale investments in waste management infrastructure, the implementation of a circular plastic economy and the cleanup of existing post-consumer plastic waste, including abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear from the environment.

We are using ecological modelling techniques and an impact forecasting approach (sometimes referred to as ‘wedges’) to evaluate mitigation strategies at both the country and global level. This means that we can measure how much an action—such as single-use plastics bans—will have on reducing the leakage of plastic into the environment compared to if we did nothing (business as usual). Our analyses will support and inform countries to help them choose the best strategies to reduce plastic pollution, within the bounds of their resource capacity, social context and uniquely local sources of plastic debris.

Figure 1: Illustrative example of what we aim to assess by combining and comparing different plastic emissions reduction strategies and scenarios. © STEPH BORRELLE

If we are to achieve meaningful reductions of plastics in our oceans, we need to have a toolbox of effective solutions that can be implemented at multiple geographic scales, economies and levels of governance. The aim of the Plastic Pollution Emissions Group is to help find those solutions in a meaningful way.

For further information, please visit plasticpeg.org or follow us on Twitter @PlasticPEGroup.

Written by Steph Borrelle, a Smith Postdoctoral Fellow in Conservation Biology and Dr. Chelsea Rochman, an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto and Scientific Advisor to Ocean Conservancy

Discovering the East Don

On November 10 our team joined Toronto Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) to clean a portion of the East Don Trail in Charles Sauriol Conservation Area. You might not think of organizing a cleanup in November, but litter season is year-round so it was important for our team to head to a local shoreline in the city to make a difference. It was a chillier cleanup than usual however the results indicated trends we are all too familiar with, single-use items scattered on the shoreline, many of them plastic.

Our team of 20 were eager to get out there and see what type of items we could remove, and we were amazed at the quantity of what we found. Our team also filled out a brand audit to uncover not only what items were most commonly found as litter, but (when identifiable), which brands came across.

Trash Team members Susan and Rafaela carefully document litter found

A total 138 lb of litter was removed, and our top 10 items included a selection of single-use plastic items we see at many shorelines in the city, including cigarette butts and many items such as bags, bottles and food wrappers. Coffee cups were also found during the cleanup, which might not sound like a plastic material, but due to their lining of polyethylene we consider them as such. This lining means coffee cups are a challenging item to recycle and instead should swapped for reusable alternatives, like a stylish travel mug!

Most common litter items found along the East Don. © UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Thank you to TRCA for inviting us to join your team for the day, we had a really had a fun time and enjoyed getting to know another section of the Don River watershed. We’re already looking forward to more cleanups with our team and members of the public.

To hear the TRCA perspective on this cleanup, please visit their blog. While you’re there, visit their website to learn more about the East Don Trail project. To lead your own cleanup, visit the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup to register your event.

Written by Susan Debreceni, Outreach Assistant for the U of T Trash Team.

Toronto’s Don River: A Source of Plastic Pollution into our Great Lakes

They say 80% of all plastic in our ocean and lakes comes from land. Do you live upstream? This doesn’t mean you are immune to having your litter reach aquatic ecosystems. Our trash can hitch a ride on streams and rivers too—leading to our ocean and lakes. In fact, rivers are a major conduit for plastic pollution to reach freshwater and marine ecosystems.

In the city of Toronto, we have four major rivers that lead directly to Lake Ontario—one of the five Laurentian Great Lakes. They are Etobicoke Creek, Mimico Creek, the Humber River and the Don River. The Don River has the highest percentage of urban area than any other river in Canada. As a consequence, we might expect it to be a major source of plastic pollution to our Great Lakes, specifically Lake Ontario.

We were curious just how much plastic litter makes its way from the Don River into Lake Ontario, and what kind. To find out, we took a trip to a dock owned by PortsToronto and characterized the litter that collects on their booms.

Each year PortsToronto removes between 400-900 metric tons of debris from Toronto’s harbour, including in the Don River. At the river mouth, PortsToronto manages a boom system that captures litter before it enters the lake. Litter is removed from the water weekly and shipped to a sorting facility. The wood is recycled into animal bedding and garden mulch and the garbage is sorted into recyclables and non-recyclables.

© CHELSEA ROCHMAN

The two piles you see were collected on the boom from June 29, 2018 through July 16, 2018. Just a little more than two-weeks. As you can see, it would take days to sort through these piles of wood and trash! Instead, we dove in for an hour and a half to see what we could collect. We picked all of the big litter off the top of both piles, and dug around in the smaller pile until very little big items remained.

What did we find? LOTS!

In 90 minutes, we collected more than 1,400 pieces of litter, plus a 133-liter bag full of Styrofoam pieces. In total, our bounty weighed 31 kg—almost 70 pounds! In our counts and weights, we did not include construction items which are quite heavy. We only included typical litter-sized items. For example, our heaviest item was a soccer ball. In fact, we found a lot of balls—53 of them to be exact! And our strangest item? A carefully wrapped package of animal fur with a beautifully crafted letter inside—in a language we could not translate.

Overall, the majority of what we found was plastic (surprise!) trash mixed in with a lot of woody debris. You can see our list of top ten finds below. If what we found is representative, we estimate that more than 650 kg of plastic litter enter Lake Ontario from the Don River annually. This would include more than 21,000 pieces of Styrofoam, 12,500 large plastic fragments, 4,000 water bottles, 2,700 bottle caps, 1,300 food wrappers, 1,100 balls and more than 900 straws and cigarette butts each. And remember, this is an underestimate. We did not dig into that large pile.

So, what can we do? The answer is diverse, because there are many ways to prevent plastic pollution from entering our Great Lakes. First, we can make sure our waste enters the proper receptacle (i.e., our blue bin, green bin and black bin). Second, we can use less single-use plastic items, which make up the majority of what we found during our clean-up. Third, we can write letters to our local leaders asking them to consider technology that will prevent litter from entering our lakes from rivers—such as the “Mr. Trash Wheel” in Baltimore. And finally, you can join us for cleanups around the city! We would love to see you out there.

Written by Dr. Chelsea Rochman, a professor at the University of Toronto that researches the sources, fate and effects of plastic pollution in our ocean.

Cleanup The Don

On May 6^th, 2018, we led our first annual Cleanup the Don inland coastal cleanup to remove trash along the Don River, keep trash out of Lake Ontario and raise awareness about the issue of plastic pollution. Students and researchers from the University of Toronto joined forces with the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, the International Coastal Cleanup and Paddle the Don, an annual event organized by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) where local residents can canoe and kayak down the Don River.

The Don River is Toronto’s most urbanized watershed and is widely enjoyed by citizens and tourists alike. On any given day, one can see a wide variety of activities in the expanse of parkland in the ravines around the Don River. Cyclists, walkers, runners, anglers and others use the trails alongside the river, which is located a short walk from Toronto’s downtown core. But, it is also a river with plastic pollution throughout.

Participants finished their paddle were treated to watershed model demonstrations at the U of T Trash Team outreach table.

At six locations, spanning over 10km of the Don River, teams collected 210 kg of trash, nearly half of which was recycled. Volunteers found many common items such as plastic packaging, coffee cups, plastic bottles and plastic bags. However, we were surprised to find a few unusual items like a vacuum cleaner, a toboggan and Venetian blinds! By number, cigarette butts were the most common item collected during the cleanup, and nearly 2000 were sent to be recycled. Despite their small size, they can be particularly harmful in the environment due to the toxic chemicals they contain.

Scientists estimate that between 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean from land every year due to mismanaged waste. Plastic can also enter the environment as microplastic—small plastic less than 5mm in size. Canada is taking steps through the microbead ban, which will eliminate microbeads in personal care products (like toothpaste and facewash) as of July 1, 2018. However, policy does not yet address other sources of microplastics, such as microfibers that shed from textiles or synthetic rubber dust from tires.While some pollution may originate from park-goers, wind and rain also carry plastic debris from land into rivers, lakes and oceans. And piece by piece, the pollution adds up.

This year Canada holds the presidency of the G7. As part of its efforts to protect our oceans, Canada has indicated its intentions to support international policy for a zero-plastics-waste charter. At the national level, Canadians have recognized work is also needed to address single-use plastic, increase recycled content in plastic products, and to increase the national recycling rate.

There are many ways we are working to tackle the plastic pollution problem, and we encourage others to do the same:

1. Avoid single-use plastic items: Using environmentally-friendly items such as stainless steel or glass straws and reusable water bottles, shopping bags and utensils, can help divert waste from landfills and the environment.
2. Improve recycling at home: By learning better recycling habits, we can prevent recyclable products from ending up in a landfill. While the list of “recyclables” varies depending on where you live, there are often resources available to help. Where we live, the City of Toronto’s Waste Wizard identifies the proper bin to put your waste.
3. Get involved in your community: Joining a cleanup in your area, (or leading one!) can help reduce plastic in the environment. The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup and International Coastal Cleanup have resources to help organize cleanups, as well as track and report data.

As we continue to lead cleanups, we are hoping to gain valuable information to answer questions such as: Do patterns of waste change over time? Will accumulation of litter in the Don River decrease as “waste literacy” in this watershed improves? We also hope that the data we collect can help provide a better estimation of plastic sources and increase scientific knowledge to inform effective policies to prevent further plastic pollution.

There is still a long way ahead to achieve zero-plastic-waste in our city and others, but our first cleanup showed us that the people care about the plastics problem and are willing to help. Over the next year, we have exciting plans to reduce waste entering Lake Ontario and increase waste literacy in our city. We look forward to seeing you out there!

Written by Lisa Erdle and Kennedy Bucci, Ph.D. students in the Rochman Lab at the University of Toronto.