Exercise Clothes, Yoga Pants may be #1 Cause of Sea Pollution

According to scientists and researchers from the Gulf Coast, comfy clothes are a major culprit when it comes to the plastic that's being found in oceans and perhaps even getting into seafood. A 2-year long study has begun to examine microscopic plastics in the Texas and Florida Keys waters.

The initiative, headed by Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium will also look into the fact that an alarming amount of microfibers — even tinier than microbeads — were found trickling down faucets and drains.

Yoga bottoms, fleece-lined coats, sweat-resistant athletic gear and other clothing produced from synthetic material sheds microscopic plastic fibers — also known as "microfibers" — when laundered. Wastewater systems flush the microfibers into natural waterways, eventually reaching the sea. Marine animals can even ingest these harmful microfibers.

Scientists at first expected to mainly find microbeads — those infamous tiny plastic balls that United States banned from all cosmetic products 2 years ago due to the hazardous affect on the environment and wildlife.

What we need is an improvement in washing machine technology and also in waste water treatment plants so that we can perhaps begin to filter out these fibres.