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Patagonia, Under Armour Work Alongside Environmental Organizations on New Microfiber Report

Patagonia's Brooklyn store. — PatagoniaCourtesy

Every year, more than 63,000 tons of microfiber reach the environment as a result of textile manufacturing. The production and laundering processes produce the greatest amount of microplastic in nature.

A new study, authored by research consultancy Earth Action and supported by The Nature Conservancy, alongside brands and retailers like Patagonia, Under Armour and Decathlon, reveals the global impact of microfiber emissions from textile production.

While earlier research has focused on fiber release during textile use, the authors say this is the first system-level assessment looking at manufacturing. This perspective is important due to the substantial shedding that occurs during production.

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Sustainability

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Matt Dwyer, VP global product footprint at Patagonia, said, “We’ve realized that solving complicated, broad problems like microfiber pollution requires partnership and an acknowledgement that, while we don’t have all the answers today, we can move faster as a collective. That kind of partnership is embodied in this report, which acknowledges the role of manufacturing in microfiber emissions as well as the current and near-future opportunities to mitigate and to eliminate those emissions.”

Emissions of fibers can be influenced by many different decisions made in a textile’s manufacturing process, including the fiber and yarn architecture, fabric construction, finishing treatments, mechanical processing history, chemical use, quality control practices, and wastewater treatment and sludge management.

Synthetic, man-made, and natural fibers can all contribute to environmental burdens, depending on how the textiles are processed and treated. The study states that the problem is systemic rather than material specific.

The paper aims to both demonstrate how fibers are released and to generate actionable solutions to the issue. It calls for a systems-based approach to tackle this challenge. It looks at both upstream processes like product design and material selection, as well as downstream actions like wastewater treatment and sludge management. Altogether, the report suggests the possibility of a 95 percent reduction in the production phase emissions within the environment.

Kyle Blakely, SVP of innovation, design studio, development, and testing at Under Armour said, “This report reinforces that the industry has reached an inflection point. Measurement alone is no longer sufficient. The greatest opportunity now lies upstream. We all must work to treat low-shedding construction as an engineering parameter embedded in design decisions from day one, not a metric measured at the end. No single brand can solve this alone. Complete coordinated action across the value chain is essential to achieving the real reductions the science demands.”

Studying the release of microfibers into the environment is currently limited by the existing data and the lack of a standard around measurement. The researchers are working to develop the first open-source approach and methodology for measurement of microfiber concentrations.

One of the companies partnering in the research is Matter, a U.K.-based clean technology company and leader in microfiltration technology designed to capture microplastics at the point of release. Matter brought data from their own research and development process to this study, including the behaviors, characteristics, and concentrations of microfibers. The company has developed a filter technology called Regen, the first filter built specifically to target microplastic fibers. The filter is self-cleaning with no disposable parts and scalable for individual homes through to global supply chains.

Matter previously collaborated with Paradise Textiles, the material science arm of global end-to-end textile company Alpine Group, on Regen for Textile Production with the claim that this solution could reduce microfiber pollution “across all 150,000 global textile factories” and essentially eliminate the microfiber waste generated by production. Matter aims to deliver enough solutions across textiles and laundry to capture 16,000 tons of microfiber by 2030.

“Real-world measurements at the wet processing and effluent treatment stages reveal a level of variability that is not yet fully reflected in current industry averages. In addition, differences in testing methodologies create further challenges in generating consistent, comparable datasets,” said Scott Voisey, principal product manager at Matter.

He continued, “Matter is working collaboratively with industry partners, including NGOs and textile manufacturers, to develop a standardized approach to measurement, enabling more aligned and robust research across the sector. We look forward to using our direct field data and insights to support future versions of this report, helping to close the gap between modeled estimates and factory floor reality, and our ambition is to make this methodology widely accessible across the industry.”

Patagonia, Under Armour Work Alongside Environmental Organizations on New Microfiber Report

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