Mary Ankeny, Cotton Incorporated
Next time you are walking on a beach and come across macro-plastics such as a discarded plastic bottle or bottle cap, abandoned flip-flop or straw, try to think about all the unseen microplastic litter that is in the water or the sand or in the air. Many of these microplastic particles come from larger plastic trash as it weathers and disintegrates. Other particles, the majority of aquatic microplastics, are generated from textile and apparel sources. These fiber fragments are carried to water bodies, such as lakes, rivers and oceans from treated wastewater sources and from the air. They find their way into soils from different sources as well. The microfibers or fiber fragments are from synthetic and manmade apparel, and from cotton or other natural apparel. Cotton Incorporated funded research through two universities to understand how these fibers degrade both in soil and in different aquatic environments. We also looked to understand how different finishes impacted cotton’s degradation and what was left behind.
