#(like. wool has an astonishing ability to keep you warm-but-not-sweaty at a bizarrely wide range of temps)

[aeide-thea]

06-07-23 Why Patagonia helped Samsung redesign the washing machine

Samsung is releasing a wash cycle and a new filter, which will dramatically shrink microfiber pollution.

Eight years ago, Patagonia started to study a little-known environmental problem: With every load of laundry, thousands (even millions) of microfibers, each less than 5 millimeters long, wash down the drain. Some are filtered out at water treatment plants, but others end up in the ocean, where fibers from synthetic fabric make up a surprisingly large amount of plastic pollution—35%, by one estimate. Fragments of your favorite sweatshirt might now be floating in the Arctic Ocean. In a collaboration that began two years ago, the company helped inspire Samsung to tackle the problem by rethinking its washing machines. Today, Samsung unveiled its solution: A new filter that can be added to existing washers and used along with a “Less Microfiber” cycle that Samsung also designed. The combination makes it possible to shrink microfiber pollution by as much as 98%.

[…] Patagonia’s team connected Samsung with Ocean Wise, a nonprofit that tests fiber shedding among its mission to protect and restore our oceans. Samsung shipped some of its machines to Ocean Wise’s lab in Vancouver, where researchers started to study how various parameters change the results. Cold water and less agitation helped—but both of those things can also make it harder to get clothing clean. “There are maybe two ways of increasing the performance of your washing machine,” says Moohyung Lee, executive vice president and head of R&D at Samsung, through an interpreter. “Number one is to use heated water. That will obviously increase your energy consumption, which is a problem. The second way to increase the performance of your washing machine is to basically create stronger friction between your clothes . . . and this friction and abrasion of the fibers is what results in the output of microplastics.” Samsung had already developed a technology called “EcoBubble” to improve the performance of cold-water cycles to help save energy, and it tweaked the technology to specifically tackle microfiber pollution. “It helps the detergent dissolve more easily in water so that it foams better, which means that you don’t need to heat up your water as much, and you don’t need as much mechanical friction, but you still have a high level of performance,” Lee says. The new “Less Microfiber” cycle, which anyone with a Samsung washer can download as an update for their machine, can reduce microfiber pollution by as much as 54%. To tackle the remainder, the company designed a filter that can be added to existing washers at the drain pipe, with pores tiny enough to capture fibers. They had to balance two conflicting needs: They wanted to make it as simple as possible to use, so consumers didn’t have to continually empty the filter, but it was also critical that the filter wouldn’t get clogged, potentially making water back up and the machine stop working. The final design compresses the microfibers, so it only has to be emptied once a month, and sends an alert via an app when it needs to be changed. Eventually, in theory, the fibers that are collected could potentially be recycled into new material rather than put in the trash. (Fittingly, the filter itself is also made from recycled plastic.) When OceanWise tested the cycle and filter together, they confirmed that it nearly eliminated microfiber pollution. Now, Samsung’s challenge is to get consumers to use it. The filter, which is designed to be easily installed on existing machines, is launching now in Korea and will launch in the U.S. and Europe later this year. The cost will vary by market, but will be around $150 in the U.S. The cycle, which began to roll out last year, can be automatically installed on WiFi-connected machines.

#microplastics #textiles #laundry #environmental #science #patagonia #samsung #i'm. so excited. #also i HAD been silently judging patagonia a little for their heavy use of synthetics but. they ARE walking the walk actually. #(will say that ime the feel of natural fibers is just. better.) #(like. wool has an astonishing ability to keep you warm-but-not-sweaty at a bizarrely wide range of temps) #(whereas like. the synthetic fleece tops i still have are like. immediately cozy‚ sure‚ but you WILL get sweaty if you get warm) #(like being in‚ you know‚ a plastic bag!) #(so like. even if they Fix the Microplastics Problem i have no regrets abt switching my allegiance to woolens) #(but. still fucking THRILLED they might fix the microplastics problem.) #does make you feel like. i'm unavoidably a humanities person but. what are humanities ppl doing that matters this much. #like fundamentally if you really want to do good in the world you probably SHOULD become a scientist of some kind. #that said‚ science would almost certainly not be improved by my participating in it‚ so like. what can you do. #really hugely awed by & appreciative of scientists tho. #anyway. obvs this is really just a press release and we gotta see how this plays out but. #!