Synthetic textiles are a significant source of microplastic fibre pollution. While the microplastic fibre release mechanism during the washing of textiles is well studied, little is known about the release of nanoplastics. The first investigations on the nanoplastic fraction released during the washing and abrasion of polyester textiles have been published; however, questions were raised regarding the chemical composition of the observed submicrometre particles. Using a combination of analytical methods, we show here that 12 different polyester textiles released 4.6 × 10¹⁰ to 8.9 × 10¹¹ particles per gram of textile during washing, with a mean size of 122–191 nm. The number of released submicrometre particles was not significantly influenced by the cutting method nor by the textile structure, but positively correlated (P < 0.01) with the number of submicrometre particles present on the fibre surface before washing. We found that 34–89% of the extracted submicrometre particles were soluble in ethanol. These particles are most likely water-insoluble poly(ethylene terephthalate) oligomers. Our results clearly show the urgent need to better understand the contribution of water-insoluble oligomer particles to the pollution of the environment by anthropogenic nanoplastics.

Correction to: Nature Waterhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00191-5, published online 8 February 2024. In the version of the article initially published, there was an error in the title: the phrase “submicrometre particles released during washing” originally appeared as “released submicrometre particles released during washing”. This has now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.