The Ecodesign Directive as a driver for less microplastic from household laundry

The presence of microplastic in the marine environment has gained increased attention in recent years. Washing of textiles is one of the sources of microplastic fibres that has raised increased concern.

The primary source of microplastics from the textile sector in Sweden is the washing and wear of synthetic fibres. Ideally, regulations should be targeted close to the source of an environmental problem to be effective, in this case towards the production of synthetic fibres. However, textile production takes place almost entirely outside Sweden and the EU, and regulations targeted at textile production would therefore require international commitment. As international commitments are harder to enforce, we chose to focus on options at the EU-level.

Anthesis AB has been assigned by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a socio-economic analysis of the introduction of ecodesign criteria to reduce microplastics from washing of textiles.

The purpose of the socio-economic analysis carried out in this study is to start framing the problem with microplastics emissions from laundry from a socio-economic perspective.

More specifically the study aims to provide a structure for analysing the performance of policy instruments concerning microplastics and to demonstrate the potential socio-economic impacts of implementing filter requirements.

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Förekomsten av mikroplast i havsmiljön har fått alltmer uppmärksamhet de senaste åren. Tvätt av syntetiska textilier är en av källorna och denna rapport fokuserar på utsläpp av mikroplast från hushåll.

Problemet med mikroplast är internationellt och textilproduktion sker nästan uteslutande utanför Sveriges och EU:s gränser. Regleringar riktade mot textilproduktion skulle därmed kräva internationella åtaganden. Regleringar som istället fokuserar på tvättfasen i värdekedjan for textiler är möjliga att genomföra på EU-nivå.

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