<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/13/you-have-to-be-where-the-pollution-is-the-inventor-hoping-to-fix-your-washing-machine-to-stop-microplastics>
"The dinky device slots seamlessly into the modest space above my washing
machine. A pipe snakes down from it, drawing in wastewater from my clothes
washes. At the end of each wash cycle, the machine makes a polite whirring
noise: that’s the sound of the groundbreaking bit of technology working,
according to its inventor, Adam Root. That invention is a microplastics filter.
“The most common thing we hear [from customers] is: ‘I cannot believe how much
material is coming out of the washing machine,’” says Root. “Somebody sent me
[photos of] dinner-platefuls.”
About three weeks after it was installed, it beeps to tell me it’s time to
empty it out. I remove the canister and scoop out the contents with the
built-in scraping tool pressed into the lid like a yoghurt spoon. My
excavations reveal a surprisingly substantial stew of grey matter – probably a
grim mixture, Root tells me, of microfibres, skin cells, hair and dust.
Root’s invention is the basis of his Bristol-based company, Matter Industries,
which claims it can capture 97% of microfibres before they escape a washing
machine. In 2025, it made Matter a runner-up in the oceans category of the
Earthshot prize. (Root was just behind Rebecca Hubbard, the director of the
High Seas Alliance, who campaigned to create the historic high seas treaty.)
Matter’s filter is now available in more than 30 European markets and the UK,
and the company plans to expand to the US.
The experiment that led to all of this unfolded a few years ago on a wet garage
floor, littered with buckets, and with an investment of just £250 behind it.
Root had rigged up a temperamental old washing machine with a homemade
microplastic filter. “I was turning this thing on and off with a broom handle;
it was pissing water all over the place. I was terrified of electrocuting
myself,” he recalls. After a few dicey attempts, he says, “I managed to get
something that worked. I demonstrated I could capture microfibres.”"
Via
Reasons to be Cheerful:
<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/what-were-reading-washing-machine-microplastic-filter/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
