Matter Industries founder Adam Root has developed a filter to trap microfibres at home and on an industrial scale. But is it just a drop in the ocean?
T
he dinky device slots seamlessly into the modest space above my washing machine. A pipe snakes down from it, drawing in wastewater from my clothes washes. At the end of each wash cycle, the machine makes a polite whirring noise: that’s the sound of the groundbreaking bit of technology working, according to its inventor, Adam Root. That invention is a microplastics filter.
“The most common thing we hear [from customers] is: ‘I cannot believe how much material is coming out of the washing machine,’” says Root. “Somebody sent me [photos of] dinner-platefuls.”
About three weeks after it was installed, it beeps to tell me it’s time to empty it out. I remove the canister and scoop out the contents with the built-in scraping tool pressed into the lid like a yoghurt spoon. My excavations reveal a surprisingly substantial stew of grey matter – probably a grim mixture, Root tells me, of microfibres, skin cells, hair and dust.
