Microfibre Release over a Garment Life

Shedding rates in the literature vary by more than an order of magnitude for nominally similar fabrics, because the test conditions dominate: machine type, load ratio, water volume, temperature, detergent, mechanical action and the filtration used to recover the fibre all move the result, and results from different protocols should not be compared. Use a rate measured under the protocol the claim will be judged by. The geometric decay is a reasonable description of the depletion of loose surface fibre and does not describe the fragmentation of the fabric itself, which continues indefinitely and rises again late in life as the structure abrades and pills - so a very long garment life will shed more in its final washes than this model allows. Mass is the honest unit here; fibre COUNT is what much of the published work reports and the two are not interchangeable, since a fine microfibre fabric releases far more fragments per milligram than a coarse one. Filtration efficiency is quoted for the fibre the filter is rated on, and the fraction reaching the environment is what passes both the machine filter and the wastewater plant - a municipal works removes a large share of what arrives, and the residue leaves in the sewage sludge rather than in the effluent, which relocates the problem rather than ending it.