Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:45 pm on 2 November 2022.
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require manufacturers to fit microplastic-catching filters to new domestic and commercial washing machines;
to make provision about the promotion of the use of microplastic-catching filters in washing machines and raising awareness about the consequences of microplastics from washing machines for pollution in rivers and seas;
and for connected purposes.
First, I would like to thank colleagues across the House who have sponsored my Bill and all colleagues for their support on this important way of tackling pollution. We do not often think about plastic pollution when we wash our clothes, but all our clothes and garments, including yours, Mr Speaker, shed what are known as microfibre plastics. I am introducing this Bill to encourage the Government to work with washing machine manufacturers to set standards to ensure that all new domestic and commercial washing machines are fitted with a microfibre plastic-catching filter.
Microfibre plastic pollution is one of the most pervasive and preventable forms of microplastic pollution; 35% of all microplastics released into the environment are shed from clothing. Microfibre plastics are tiny fibres that can be shed from our clothes during the wash cycle. Due to their small size, they are not trapped by existing washing machine filters and can end up in the waste water system, where they may be caught, remain in sewage sludge that is then spread on to our growing crops, or be released from the waste water into rivers and, worse still, the marine environment. Research by the University of Plymouth has found that one wash cycle can release more than 700,000 microfibres into our sewerage system. That means that across the UK, 10 trillion microfibres are released every week. That is a gargantuan amount of plastic pollution.
It is not enough to rely on our waste water treatment centres to filter microplastics from our water; the microplastics are so small that sewage works cannot capture all of them. The result is millions of microplastics being released from the waste water into our rivers and seas, damaging our environment. The microplastics contain chemicals that are then ingested by fish and other small aquatic creatures. Much of the plastic pollution then travels up the food chain so that we humans ingest it through consumption of fish.
Microplastic fibres from clothing are contaminating otherwise pristine natural environments, including in the snow close to the peak of Mount Everest, and have even been found in the depths of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific ocean. They are found in many urban and semi-urban river beds in the UK, in our constituencies. I urge colleagues to think about their own constituency rivers, which are probably contaminated with microplastics.
Recent research has also shown that microplastics are also in the lungs and blood of some human beings. That means that some of us here today already have microfibre plastics in our bodies, possibly even you, Mr Speaker—