You may not know it, but by launching your machines, you pollute not only with your laundry but also with your clothes. Polyester, acrylic, elastane ... most fabrics contain synthetic fibers and, with each washing cycle, 700,000 microscopic fibers leave with the wastewater. These plastic particles are too small to be filtered in processing plants. It therefore remains to invent a fairly fine filter, integrated in the washing machine. Monday morning, Secretary of State Brune Poirson issued a warning to manufacturers, who were received at the Ministry of Ecological and Inclusive Transition: they will have to be ready in 2025.
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"There are solutions that have emerged", but ...
It is a world first: French law stipulates that within five years, each washing machine, private or professional (as in dry cleaners), must have a filter. "It's very difficult, it requires changes in behavior, technological changes, but we have no choice, we must do it," said the secretary of state. "There are solutions that have emerged, some have thought of portable filters ... At this point, they remain extremely embryonic so the challenge is to scale them up, so as to reduce costs and to make sure they are perfectly effective. "
And to stimulate the dozen European household appliance manufacturers present at the ministry, Brune Poirson has also launched a sort of competition that will reward those who have found, before 2025, the miracle filter.