Data from: A participatory science approach to quantify microfiber emissions from clothes dryers

Studies have shown that washing and drying clothes contribute microfiber
contamination to the environment. However, many of the previous studies on
clothes drying were conducted under idealized conditions. To better
understand microfiber emissions from clothes dryers during normal
household use, we recruited participatory volunteer scientists to install
a mesh on their dryer vents for three weeks. During that time, the
volunteers used a mobile application to record the item dried (e.g.,
pants, shirt, etc.) and the material composition (e.g., cotton, acrylic,
silk). The mesh was then returned and the accumulated material was
removed, weighed, and analyzed. The results showed that the items dried
were primarily comprised of cotton, followed by polyester. The
textile-derived microfibers on the mesh were primarily cellulose, followed
by polyethylene terephthalate/polyester and other plastics. When we
compared the microfibers on the mesh to the textiles dried, we found that
the relative percentage of cellulosic microfibers on the mesh was higher
than the percentage of cellulosic textiles dried. This suggests that
cellulosic textiles released more microfibers than synthetic textiles. On
average, 138 mg of material was emitted per dryer load. When scaled to the
number of electric clothes dryers in the United States and the average
number of dryer loads per household per year, we estimated dryers release
~3,543.6 metric tons of microfibers per year. The results indicate that
clothes dryers are potentially a significant source of cellulosic and
synthetic microfibers being released into the air, and steps should be
taken to reduce these emissions. The methods outlined here can be applied
to other studies to assess microfiber emissions from dryers under normal
household use.