I'll talk to myself then!

I'll try to drag it somewhat on topic with a mention of the Paris study refeenced in the article. This caught my eye - airbourne microplastic found inside the home. A potential further reason for managed ventilation with filtered ingress air flow. MVHR would be first on my list if I lived in a city, more for diesel and solid fuel paticulates but plastic seems like another reason.

And back to our wool discussion - clothes drying and washing of synthetics, potentially releasing hundreds of thousands of plastic fibres into air and drainage water per cycle. Perhaps we should all be wearing organic fibres afterall.


Should we worry? Less data available on the health implications, but grounded theories on why it could pose a heatlh risks. Basically, plastic is everywhere, in our food, in the air, in the water. It's not a problem that's going away. I expect to see legislative net tightening on plastic use over the next decade but will the UK lead the way or lag behind once free from Euro legislative shackles?

I'M not sure how much micro-plastic / airborne plastic the normal MVHR filters would take out as most of the problem seems to be the sub-2.5 particles.

But to reduce the single use plastics - what about a campaign against bottled water. What a waste carting water around the country! Over here the soda siphons are coming back into fashion, refillable at home with a CO2 cartridge and tap water - filtered if you must -, the CO2 cartridges are exchanged after use and its cheaper than bottled water. Lets hear it for the Oval cricket ground - drink tap water!!

it appears that MVHR filters would be effective or at least partially effective, see below link on filtration from Paul who offer F7 filters which claim a degree of effectiveness down to 0.1um. The Paris study notes fibres in the 100 - 5000um range, though I assume that means they didnt test for finer particles rather than finer particles were absent. Microplastic defined as particles less than 5mm.

Whether this filtration of plastic fibres is desirable or not is debatable, though I think it's reasonable to assume most people would rather not be inhaling plastic fibres. But it appears MVHR filtration will capture microplastics, depending on the filter and the particle size.

https://www.paulheatrecovery.co.uk/heat-recovery-explained/filtration/

Posted By: fostertomVarious new molecular kinds of carbon touted as the replacement for plastics,

??
Most exiting plastics are based on long chain organic molecules, i.e. molecules in which carbon is a very significant (organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon based compounds & materials).

I share your concern - and not just with plastic microparticles. This article on air quality on the London Underground, for example: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/tube-passengers-breathe-in-12m-toxic-air-particles-a-minute-and-could-be-at-risk-of-dementia-a3583446.html - and more specific concerns about aluminium contamination: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/03/22/aluminum-toxicity-alzheimers.aspx

It would certainly be good to see more research and potential solutions to such issues, even if we have been living with contamination since at least the stone age: http://www.silica-safe.org/ask-a-question/faq (of particular relevance to those on this forum).