ChemistryNL Times: Ban on non-degradable polyester fibers

7 november 2050

Some people look a bit incredulous when they learn that washing machines in the recent past did not have a special filter that captures nano and microfibers from polyester clothing. Now, in 2050, this has long been the case. All washing machines in Europe are equipped with such a filter as standard once it has been conclusively proven that such non-degradable chemical fibers are found in the environment, not excluding human blood.

Recycled plastic
This realization did not lead to the European-wide intention from the 1920s that all plastics in 2050 should consist of sustainable materials and should no longer have a fossil source. The fact that the ambition was set down once contributed to the fact that society came to an end via intermediate steps. In the early 1920s, for example, ‘Brussels’ started to discourage the use of ’traditional’ plastic packaging, cutlery, cups and plastic bags and the like. Gradually, the willingness of more and more people to opt for recycled plastic increased. All clothing manufacturers in Europe signed a covenant in the 1920s that they would no longer produce fleece clothing from traditional polyester after 2030. They also committed that after 2039 they would only sell polyester textiles that are highly resistant to abrasion during washing.
All this does not detract from the fact that the traditional chemical industry in the Benelux invested 10 billion euros in new production capacity of plastics from fossil sources in 2022. That is, in capacity that produced non-renewable plastic that eventually ended up in the environment as non-degradable waste.

Polyester fibers
The fact that this was also the case with polyester nano and microfibers first came into the public eye and political debate in 2020 through a project by the research groups of Prof. Gert-Jan Gruter (UvA) and Dr. Heather Leslie (VU Amsterdam) that was funded by NWO and industry partner and co-financier Avantium. Among other things, this research resulted in a new method to quantify the existence of the fibres. The result was shocking: washing polyester-containing clothing such as fleeces leaks 3 million tons of non-visible and non-degradable polyester fibers into river water, sea water and sediment every year.
The awareness that this is unacceptable increased when the fibers were observed in the food chain, drinking water and in the lungs and circulatory system of humans. There were fears of adverse health effects when it was discovered that the fibers occur in molluscs such as mussels and that they grow less fast as a result. And that pesticide residues can adhere to the fibers and increase their toxicity. Scientific evidence provided by research projects carried out by TU Delft, VU University Amsterdam and Utrecht University, among others, on the harmfulness of fibers to health accumulated, such as the observation that the fibers can be absorbed by cells, causing them to subsequently die.

This research has gone hand in hand with the development of various types of renewable plastics. However, during those years it was not conclusively established how serious the consequences of these fibers are for public health in the long term. In addition, removing the hundreds of millions of tons of fiber from the environment was not an option. Nevertheless, in order to completely stop the leakage of the fibers into the environment in Europe, the filter has been introduced in the washing machines and the clothing manufacturers will no longer produce fleece clothing made of ’traditional’ polyester from 2030.

Text: Henk Engelenburg

This article is part of our ChemistryNL Times. These articles contain stories about the research and mission-driven innovations of today, with a look ahead to 2050.