Microfiber emissions through domestic laundry; an estimation of microfiber release and their fate in a medium-sized city

Microfibers (MF) are described as ubiquitous environmental contaminants. They usually emanate from textiles and domestic laundry is a major source of MF in the environment. This study aims to investigate MF emissions through domestic laundry in a hypothesized town in real-life conditions. For this, MF samples were collected from the effluent of the washing cycles in two households, and an anonymous questionnaire was released (> 500 responses) to determine the washing habits of Greek households. More than 6.3 ± 1.9 × 10⁴ MF were released during each wash cycle and could occasionally exceed 90 × 10⁴ MF. All samples contained synthetic fibers whose relative abundance ranged between 1.7 and 66%. Statistically significant changes in total and synthetic MF were found between seasons attributed to changes in textiles used. Considering the minimum observed MF emissions, it was estimated that in a city of 100,000 inhabitants, annual emissions of microfibers were > 359 × 10⁹ or 1.2 t. If all households were connected to a sewage network and a wastewater treatment plant with a 99.9% microplastic retention rate, approximately 5.2 kg of microfibers would enter the aquatic environment annually in a medium-sized city. These results underscore human intervention in the environment and emphasize the necessity for more research into methods for reducing the release of microfibers into the environment.