Is it safe to wash coated workout gear with regular clothes?
No. The slick finish on athletic wear sheds microplastic onto everything in the load.
What's actually in it
High-end athletic wear often has a low-friction coating: a thin polymer layer that makes the fabric slippery, moisture-wicking, or chafe-resistant. The coating breaks down during machine washing, releasing microplastic fibers and coating fragments into the wash water. Some of that debris rinses away. Some redeposits on everything else in the load, including underwear, baby clothes, and bedsheets.
Once coating fragments stick to cotton, they stay there through multiple washes and into the dryer lint.
What the research says
A 2026 study in ACS Environ Au tested what happens when low-friction-coated fabrics are laundered with uncoated textiles. The coated items released significantly more microplastic fibers than uncoated synthetics, and the debris coated the uncoated items in the same load. Soft cotton next to coated nylon picked up a meaningful share.
The practical rule is to separate loads by material: all synthetics together, all natural fibers together. A Guppyfriend wash bag or an external microfiber filter (Filtrol, PlanetCare) catches most of the shed during the synthetic load. Air-drying synthetics instead of tumble-drying cuts another big source of fiber breakdown. When buying new activewear, look for merino wool or tencel options where performance matters less: both wick well without the polymer coating.
The research at a glance
| Study | Journal | Year |
|---|---|---|
| How Low-Friction Coatings Affect Microplastic Fiber Release When Laundering Coated and Uncoated Textiles Together. | ACS Environ Au | 2026 |
What to use instead
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