Adidas, Levi’s and Under Armour join forces against microfiber pollution

Eleven fashion and textile companies are joining forces to prevent fashion from further polluting the planet with microfibers. On March 4, Adidas, Kering, Inditex and Levi’s, together with the nonprofits Microfibre Consortium and Fashion for Good, launched an effort — known as Behind the Break — to root out fiber fragmentation at the source.

The collaboration’s report, which kicked off the project, identified sticking points and opportunities for companies seeking to clean up the problem.

Polyester and other synthetics, made from fossil fuels, account for three-quarters of all fiber production. As a result, textiles now make up more than one-tenth of all plastic pollution. As billions of people wear and wash their plastic-based clothing, untold amounts of microfibers shed into the air, land and water. These particles are finding their way into human lungs, brains and arteries, killing cells and attracting other toxic chemicals.

In response, governments and the private sector have started to take action. France, for example, mandated the use of microfiber filters in new washing machines in January. Meanwhile, a range of established conglomerates and startups are developing various fiber-catching technologies. Yet this motley collection of solutions doesn’t address what is likely the largest culprit, manufacturing.

The collaboration noted, for instance, that fiber fragments flowing into wastewater from textile factories are found at concentrations close to a thousand times higher than in municipal sewage systems.

“Our objective is to identify processes and strategies that mitigate fiber pollution through informed textile design and manufacturing processes,” said Lewis Shuler, head of innovation at Alpine Group’s Paradise Textiles. Positive Materials is another fiber producer involved in the project, alongside brands Adidas, Bestseller, C&A, Norrona, On and Under Armour.

Behind the Break’s inaugural report described numerous impediments to progress on the issue. They include the lack of a common definition for “fiber pollution,” and gaps in understanding both the sources of pollution and why some fabrics shed more than others.

Untangling the problem

“Our goal is to leverage data-driven insights to improve our processes, product design and sourcing practices, thereby contributing to a less polluting industry,” Lucie Anne Martinol, textile innovation lead at the Zurich-based sneaker brand On, said in a statement. “Collaboration across stakeholders is crucial to accelerating our progress toward a more sustainable future.” 

Project participants plan to explore how fibers break off from cotton knit, cotton woven and polyester knit textiles. Their goals include refining testing methods, comparing data from different testing methods, building upon existing knowledge and improving designs and supply chains.

“The focus on different testing methods will allow us to reduce uncertainty, take a common direction and set priorities for future research and initiatives within the industry,” said Katrin Ley, managing director at Amsterdam-based Fashion for Good, in a press statement.

The current effort builds upon earlier work, such as Under Armour’s release of a tool in December 2023 to help textile mills and others measure the rate that fibers shed from fabrics. The sportswear maker participates with more than two dozen other companies in the Microfibre Consortium’s Microfibre 2030 Commitment. The consortium offers its own fiber-shedding test method and data portal.

Those involved in Behind the Break also strive to improve manufacturing practices and shape future regulations.

As participants seek to understand how textile dyeing, spinning and weaving release fibers, their report also described the consumer origins of this type of pollution:

• One person can release 900 million polyester microfibers into the air by wearing garments, and 300 million into the water by washing them, according to research by Richard Thompson, director of the Marine Institute at the University of Plymouth in England.
• Nearly six million tons of synthetic fibers flow from laundering clothes, according to 2023 research in the journal Fibers.
• Half a million microfibers can tumble out of a household dryer after just 15 minutes.

Pollution risks growing

Microfibers pose risks to both corporate reputations and bottom lines. In the U.S., corporate liabilities created by plastic pollution will surpass $20 billion by 2030, according to a 2024 report on “novel entities” by the London think tank Planet Tracker.

Investors have already sounded alarms. Shareholders of VF Corporation, home of brands including The North Face, Vans and Timberland, one year ago said the company “lags its peers” in addressing the microfiber problem and urged VF Corporation to disclose how it would address microfibers in its products. Four months later, the company — which had been represented in the Microfibre Consortium by The North Face, which was a founding member of the consortium’s original incarnation, the Outdoor Microfibre Working Group, in 2017 — officially joined the consortium. (Jeannie Renne Malone, vice president for global sustainability at VF Corp., said that the parent company “formally changed the membership to the VF enterprise level … in order to demonstrate that it is not just TNF, but in fact all our brands working collaboratively with TMC and the broader industry on this topic.” She also pointed to VF’s efforts on microfibers and other sustainability issues, including its membership in the EU Product Environmental Footprint Technical Secretariat Working Group. The shareholder proposal was later withdrawn.)

Regulatory pressures for business are also emerging, albeit slowly. Oregon Senate Bill 405 proposes a mandate for the use of laundry machine filters starting in 2026. Connecticut formed a microfiber pollution working group in 2020, although no laws have so far emerged from it.

Trapping the fibers

Patagonia and Samsung, which co-developed a laundry machine filter, are two of the biggest brands trying to tackle the problem. Meanwhile, the Bristol, U.K.-based startup Matter Industries has begun to make a filter for Bosch and Siemens appliances. Matter is also planning to launch a pilot program, with Paradise Textiles of Wuxi, China, to remove microfibers during production at a textile mill in Egypt later this year 2025.

In addition — and not surprisingly — a cottage industry has sprung up to sell consumers inexpensive tools that purport to trap microfibers in the wash. These include the $35 Guppyfriend bag from Berlin and the $46 Cora Ball from Vermont. But given a lack of standardized testing, their effectiveness is unclear.

This story was updated on March 6, 2025 to reflect that shareholders called upon VF Corporation to increase its efforts to limit microfiber pollution and that The North Face was a founding member of the Outdoor Microfibre Working Group, and on March 7 to include comments from Jeannie Renne Malone.

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