Researchers Measured the Air Around Polyester Clothing and Found More Plastic

Researchers sampled the air around people wearing cotton and polyester, and found more microplastics near the polyester.

Rex Whinfield and James Dickson spun the first polyester fiber in 1941 at the Broad Oak Printworks in Lancashire, England, drawing it from terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol and calling it Terylene. The polymer they made, polyethylene terephthalate, also goes into plastic drink bottles, and the two products overlap so closely that 98 percent of recycled polyester still comes from bottles. Polyester made up 59 percent of all fiber produced in 2024, and many of the T-shirts sold today contain anywhere from 50 to 100 percent of it.

A team at the University of Memphis set out to measure how much of that plastic reaches a person’s nose and mouth while the shirt is on their back. For a pilot study released earlier this week, researchers dressed ten participants in 100 percent cotton T-shirts and in polyester-containing ones, sampled the air in each wearer’s breathing zone through active daytime hours, and compared those readings with 12-hour baseline samples from the participants’ bedrooms. The polyester shirts raised microplastic exposure by up to 42 percent and pushed concentrations near 2,000 particles per cubic meter, according to the study announcement. The team identified each particle’s polymer with micro-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and found PET in 99 percent of the airborne microplastics, with up to 77 percent of the particles small enough to count as microscopic.

“Our findings suggest that synthetic garments are a contributingreathing zone,” Chunrong Jia, professor of environmental health at the University of Memphis, said in a statement. “While airborne microplastics exist in general indoor environments, fabric choice can affect how many microplastic particles a person is exposed to.”

The Memphis figures build on a 2020 University

The Memphis figures build on a 2020 University of Plymouth experiment in which polyester garments gave off as many as 400 fibers per gram of fabric during 20 minutes of ordinary movement, a rate the researchers scaled to more than 900 million fibers per person per year, the university reported.

“The key story here is that the emission of fibres while wearing clothes is likely of a similar order of magnitude as that from washing them,” Richard Thompson, head of the University of Plymouth’s International Marine Litter Research Unit, said in a statement. “That constitutes a substantial and previously unquantified direct release to the environment.”

Researchers at Hull York Medical School have since found the same polymer inside living people. In 2022, the team analyzed 13 samples of lung tissue taken during surgery, detected microplastics in 11 of them, and recorded PET as 18 percent of the particles, second only to polypropylene, according to the study.

The Memphis research drew its funding

The Memphis research drew its funding from the National Cotton Council’s Cotton Foundation, and the university says its team designed, ran, analyzed, and interpreted the study on its own. The council has watched cotton’s share of total fiber use fall to 21 percent, and it runs Plant Not Plastic, a consumer campaign that steers shoppers toward natural fibers.

“As concerns grow about the potential impact of microplastics on human health, many people are looking for practical ways to reduce their exposure, as researchers continue working to better understand the long-term impacts,” Marjory Walker, the council’s vice president of operations and campaign director for Plant Not Plastic, said in a statement. “These findings add to the growing body of research around microplastics and help consumers better understand how clothing and fabric choice may influence personal exposure.”

Jennifer Mandel directs ACRE, the university’s Institute for Agricultural and Conservation Research and Education, which brings farmers, regional businesses, and community organizations together for collaborative research. “This research, which involves public health, engineering, and agriculture, highlights the kind of interdisciplinary collaboration that ACRE was created to support,” Mandel said in a statement. “As emerging issues, like microplastics, continue to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries, ACRE’s faculty and student researchers are ready to lead innovative scientific research that advances our understanding of these complex environmental questions.”

The authors released the results as a brief

The authors released the results as a brief report and named sampling variability, measurement uncertainty, and other indoorThey want larger groups, a wider range of fabrics, and repeat measurements before anyone recommends one shirt over another

“Our preliminary findings highlight the need for further research before drawing definitive conclusions. Scientists must continue improving measurement methods and reducing uncertainties,” Farhad Jazaei, associate professor at the University of Memphis, said in a statement. “Since the long-term health and environmental impacts of microplastics are not yet fully understood, raising awareness among younger generations is especially important. They will inherit these environmental challenges, and their voices can help shape future research priorities, evidence-based regulations, and sustainable industry practices.”