Contact: 

Catherine Prunella, NYSG Water Quality Extension Specialist, P:  (718) 502-8092, E: cjp275@cornell.edu

Case Study: Microfiber Filtration: California AB 1628

Bronx, NY, April 18, 2025 - "Microfiber Filtration: California AB 1628" (pdf) is an eight-page case study prepared by 2024 New York Sea Grant Law and Policy Fellow Stephanie Sistare Hill, with assistance from Catherine Prunella, NYSG's Water Quality Extension Specialist.

This Case Study summarizes AB 1628’s legislative intent — “... helping to reduce the amount of microfibers from ending up in our freshwater systems, oceans, and agricultural lands” — and existing legislation; committee concerns, amendments, and comments; and arguments of support, opposition, and veto rational.

The bill required that new washing machines sold or offered for sale for state or residential use in California to have a built-in or in-filter of <100 micrometers for microfiber filtration with an identifying label by January 1, 2029.

Postcard: How Microfibers Enter the Environment

Bronx, NY, October 24, 2024 - Microfibers are one of the biggest sources of microplastic pollution in our environments. Researchers have found microfibers in air, water, soil, food, and humans.

So, how do microfibers enter the environment? As detailed in a New York Sea Grant postcard (pdf), clothing sheds tiny pieces of fiber, called microfibers or fiber fragments.

Learn more in scenes from the postcard ...






More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Oswego, the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark, and in Watertown. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, in Queens, at Brooklyn College, with Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC, in Bronx, with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County in Kingston, and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County in Elmsford.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.