CLEVELAND — It's a sunny day at Wendy Park on the shores of Lake Erie. But look closer and you'll see what doesn't belong here: plastic. Small bits to even tinier pieces called microplastics. A huge threat to our clean water supply.
The culprit? It's in the laundry room.
"We didn't understand how washing machines could be the largest source of microplastics,” said Max Pennington, the CEO and cofounder of CLEANR. “So we just made basically a strainer and tried to run a load of washing machine wastewater through it."
"And what we saw was pretty disgusting,” remembered Chip Miller, COO of CLEANR. “It looked like wet lint that came out of your dryer. But in the washing machine, as well as a bunch of other nasty stuff that was just on the clothes."
Three friends, all from Case Western Reserve University, came together to combat the environmental dangers that can come from just doing the laundry. They set out to stop microplastics from our clothes from making its way into our water.
Their solution? A special filter to catch the plastics. But making it wasn't so easy.
"We went to the ThinkBox and we printed out our first prototype to stop microplastics and it blew up Max's washing machine,” recalled David Dillan, the CTO and co-founder of CLEANR. “And then we said, okay, we should put a little more thought of time into this."
What first started out as a side interest or hobby has two years later become a business called CLEANR. Engineers have come up with two different designs: the first is an external filter that fits on existing washing machines.
"And then also there's an internal unit that CLEANR, alongside with some washing machine manufacturers, are working to put this inside the washing machine," said Dillan.
France will require those filters by 2025. the rest of the European Union isn't far behind. As for the U.S., California is considering legislation as well.
“We really want to start with washing machines and then continue to develop and adopt our filtration systems to continue to remove microplastics," said Pennington.
"Because the impact that it's going to have on our children and our children's children is where the impact is being made," said Miller.
The small company of 17 engineers is growing and focused on solutions to stop one of nature's greatest threats.
“To build a really great company and remove as many microplastics as we possibly can from the environment and then keep designing innovative solutions to help the world and help the environment," said Pennington.
CLEANR hopes to have their final filter design ready by 2025 or sooner. The filters inside the washing machines should last the lifetime of the appliance, so you shouldn’t need to change it out.
