Golf Magazine

Washing is a Bad Idea

By Golfrefugees

Why its a bad idea to wash your plastic polyester sports clothes.


Most sports clothing companies use plastic man-made fabrics like polyester and nylon. Each time we wash a shirt, jacket or other clothing made from these materials, plastic microfibres get washed into the sewage system and flow into the ocean. From there the microfibres are ingested by small fish, and make their way up the food chain. And these fibres are everywhere. They contaminate not only our waterways, but also our food and air.

 When ecologist Mark Brown studied microplastics on shorelines across the globe, he discovered that 85% of the plastic came from man-made clothing fibres. Experiments with washing machines reveal that 1,900 pieces of plastic microfibres come off of a single piece of clothing every time it’s washed. Since nearly every major clothing company now uses these synthetic man-made fibres, it adds up to a huge amount of plastic microfibres entering our waterways, contributing toxins to our environment.

Plastic pollution has increased by 500% in the last 30 years, and the plastic litter that finds its ways into our oceans kills over 100,000 wild animals every year.
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