PARIS – The French Secretary of State to the Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, Brune Poirson, this week met manufacturers of washing machines to discuss impending anti-waste laws aimed at combating plastic pollution at sea. Among other things, new circular economy laws in France include a measure to obligatorily equip the 2.7 million washing machines sold in France each year with microparticle filters by the end of 2024.
The goal of such a move is to reduce the amount of microfibres entering the country’s waterways during the laundering process. While much of the data is contradictory on this issue, various studies have shown that textiles shed anywhere between 31,000 and 3,500,000 fibres per load during normal laundering in household washing machines. Factors such as speed of the wash and temperature impact on these figures.
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