GUPPYFRIEND Bucket Filter

Microplastics are everywhere. Home textiles such as upholstered furniture, curtains, and carpets, but also surface coatings, clothing, and shoe soles, generate microplastics. The fibrous and particulate emissions, mostly caused by abrasion, aging, and sunlight, accumulate together with various natural materials like hair and skin flakes to form so-called 'dust bunnies'. The proportion of synthetics in house dust depends heavily on the materials present in the living environment.

Besides hair, skin particles, and mites, house dust consists primarily of plastic abrasion from carpets, blankets, upholstered furniture, curtains, shoe soles, textiles, and other objects.

It cannot be reliably filtered out by wastewater treatment plants, ends up in nature along with sewage sludge, and is responsible there for the emissions of climate-damaging ethylene and methane gases. Millions of tons of the smallest plastic particles are already destroying CO2 sinks on land and in the water. They can cause various cancers in humans and animals and are suspected of leading to reproductive disorders and thus to the extinction of important microorganisms. Before broken-off synthetic fibers and fragments break down into even smaller pieces, microplastics must be filtered out where they originate. Because all experts agree: microplastics simply do not belong in the environment!

The 'sludge' remaining in the bucket filter can be removed while damp and disposed of in the residual waste. After use, the filter surface can be cleaned with a cloth or a soft brush (natural bristles!). Attention: Please do not clean under running water!

In principle, yes. However, you shouldn't use just any cleaner, but rather make sure that yours is biodegradable and does not contain solid microplastics or liquid polymers. Surfactants from palm oil may be of natural origin, but we prefer clean soil and an intact rainforest. There are alternatives! Please always clean responsibly and also be careful not to bring the filter into contact with heavily overdosed, thick, or acidic cleaning solutions.

The 'sludge' collected in the bucket filter consists of a collection of various materials that should under no circumstances be released into the environment or returned to the material cycle. To avoid this, disposing of it in a sealed container in the residual waste is the safest solution.

Yes, they do. Wastewater treatment plants clean and filter our wastewater. However, there are at least three major problems:

Even modern wastewater treatment plants cannot completely remove microplastics. The smaller particles, in particular, are problematic. Studies show that significant amounts of microplastics can be found in rivers 'behind' (downstream of) the treatment plants.
The sewage sludge filtered out in the treatment plant is usually spread by farmers as fertilizer on fields, which leads to extreme microplastic pollution.
To avoid backflow into our households during heavy rainfall, unpurified wastewater contaminated with microplastics is sometimes diverted directly into rivers and lakes.

So, join in! Filter your wastewater! You are the last stop before the microplastics from your house dust make their way into nature!

For the GUPPYFRIEND bucket filter, we use an untreated, silicone-free, and particularly fine polyester laboratory filter mesh, which is characterized by its high alkali resistance. Since it is a monofilament, the filter mesh itself does not release any microplastics into the environment.