‘You have to be where the pollution is’: the inventor hoping to fix your washing machine to stop microplastics

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?

The 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.”