Microplastics From Washing Clothes Could Be Hurting Your Tomatoes

A new study from Cornell and University of Toronto researchers has found that polyester microfibers shed from synthetic clothing during laundry can interfere with cherry tomato plant development [non-paywalled source] when these particles accumulate in agricultural soil. Plants grown in contaminated soil were 11% less likely to emerge, grew smaller and took several days longer to flower and ripen.
Household laundry is a leading source of this contamination. Treated sewage sludge retains roughly