I Reviewed 3 Microplastic Laundry Filters. Here’s How It Went.

Most things are cute in micro form: cats, sandwiches, legos…

But microplastics? Not cute.

I don’t have to tell you that microplastics are problematic for both human and environmental health.

Even worse: avoiding plastic entirely is like trying to avoid someone you’ve permanently shared your location with. Totally impossible. 

Plastic is increasingly polluting our environment. It is the most common form of debris found in oceans and The Great Lakes. 

We often forget that most of our clothes are plastic. Polyester, nylon, spandex, etc.—it’s all plastic. And it’s becoming a huge problem. Laundry wastewater is one of the highest contributors of microplastic pollution. A 2025 study found microplastics in 99% of the seafood tested, and you know what was responsible for 80% of it? Yep: textiles.

The problem is that switching to a 100% natural wardrobe can be quite expensive and difficult. It takes time. 

But fortunately, there are some cool devices out there that help us reduce the amount of microplastics that shed from our laundry and into the waterways even when we wash our synthetic clothing. 

I’ve been testing 3 microfiber filters for washing machine: PlanetCare, Cora Ball, & GuppyFriend. I’m ready to share just how easy each of these is to use.  

BTW: Plastics are my Roman Empire. I am always thinking about how much plastic is in our environment and I have a lot to say on the topic, so stick around after the product reviews if you’re interested in learning more or commiserating! 

This guide contains product recommendations and we may receive compensation if you purchase through certain links. As always, we only make recommendations that are genuine!

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Cora Ball Microfiber Filter Review

• Ease of use: Very Easy
• Ease of cleaning: Very easy 
• Does it work? Yes
• Would I recommend it to my mom? Yes
• Price: $42
• Cons to Cora Ball: The only con I can think of is that if you forget to remove the ball from the washer and put something in with tassels or loose threads then it will likely tangle/further unravel. 

Cora Ball both prevents fibers from breaking off your clothes and helps collect them so they don’t pass through to the water stream. 

How do you use Cora Ball? 

You put a Cora Ball in your washing machine and that’s literally it.

How do you clean Cora Ball? 

To clean the ball, you simply need to pull the fibers (and cat hair lol) out of the coral and throw them away. That’s it! 

I honestly go months without cleaning my Cora Ball (but don’t be like me). The Cora Ball team recommends cleaning it when you start to see big tangles in it. 

Does it work?

Yes! I let mine build up for months because I like seeing everything in there. But just because your ball doesn’t have fibers in it doesn’t mean it’s not working because it also prevents shedding. 

To ensure it works, the team had the Cora Ball independently tested it and the results speak for themselves.

• Cora Ball catches 31% of the microfibers that would have gone through your pipes per load. 
• Using Cora Ball can increase the life of your garments (by preventing some of that shedding).

Would I recommend Cora Ball to my mom? 

This is generally how I think about whether I would refer a product to people who are not as deep into sustainability as I am. And I would definitely give one of these to my mom! 

• It’s easy to use
• It’s cool to look at
• It’s fun to see how many fibers (and cat hair) it collects
• And I think it’s an EASY way we can all do something sustainable and feel good about it. 

Some other cool things I like about Cora Ball:

• At the end of its life, the team will take the ball back to responsibly recycle it.

• Cora Ball can be used in any kind of washing machine (making it a great option for renters and folks who use laundromats)!

• I think the price is totally reasonable for a product that will last 5+ years.  

If you decide to get a Cora Ball, you can use the code THEFILTERY for 10% off.

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Guppyfriend Washing Bag Review

• Ease of use: Very Easy
• Ease of cleaning: Easy 
• Does it work? Yes! 
• Would I recommend it to my mom? Yes but…
• Price: $35.95
• Cons: If you’re trying to wash all of your clothes in the bag you’ll either need multiple bags or you’ll need to do more smaller loads. 

The concept of GuppyFriend is simple: you put your synthetic clothes in the bag, zip it up, and put it in the washing machine. The ‘mesh’ is tight enough that water and soap can get in but microplastics and fibers can’t get out. 

The GuppyFriend was started by two surfers and owners of an outdoor apparel store who wanted to do more about microplastic pollution from clothing. Their research got picked up by Patagonia who gave them one of their first grants to continue their research and produce GuppyFriend. 

How to use GuppyFriend:

Using GuppyFriend is really easy! You put your clothes in the bag (but don’t stuff it full!), zip it up, and put the bag in the washing machine. When the washing machine is done, take the bag out, take the clothes out of the bag and dry them. 

The bag (comfortably) holds about 2 medium-sized men’s fleece jackets + a pair of leggings. Obviously the smaller the items, the more you can fit in a bag.

How to clean GuppyFriend:

The thing is, our clothes shed a lot, but on a microscopic scale. So collecting the microfibers from the bag is a teensy bit difficult, particularly when wet. I generally do it in 3 steps: 

• Take the bag out and collect whatever visible microfibers I can see. (See the video below!)

• Take the clothes out of the bag and shake off each one into a little pile because the discarded fibers tend to stick to the clothes — then I vacuum.

• Then I flip the bag over and shake it out too into a little pile that I vacuum/sweep up. 

• You also want to make sure you get the top corners of the bag where the fibers accumulate.

Does it work? 

Yes! You can definitely see the fibers after you’ve washed clothes, similar to the CoraBall but on a much smaller scale which is cool.

You can also see how well constructed the bag is. There’s a cloth flap that folds over the zipper, the zipper itself is sturdy, and the weave feels strong. 

Would I recommend it to my mom? 

Yes I would, but it’s not something I can see someone who isn’t particularly concerned with microplastics using simply because it’s more involved than the Cora Ball is.

However, even if someone only used it for big things like blankets, fleece jackets, etc., it would still be worth it and I think it has a universal appeal in that regard. 

Some other cool things I like about GuppyFriend:

• The ‘mesh’ is small enough that water and soap can get in but microplastics can’t get out. 

• This one can also be used whenever, wherever. You don’t have to install anything, making it another good option for taking to the laundromat, on trips, etc.

• Technically, the Guppyfriend washing bag is made out of polyester, which is not ideal, but to me it seems like a net positive. Over its lifespan, the bag is catching way more microfibers than it is potentially contributing. (It’s also untreated, undyed and contains no additives.)

• The GuppyFriend team worked with various scientific institutes, universities, retailers and more to test and perfect the washing bag.

By the way, Guppyfriend also has a washing machine attachment filter that’s currently available for purchase in Europe.

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PlanetCare Washing Machine Filter Review

This filter is different from the other two because it’s actually an attachment that you install onto your washing machine.

In a Nutshell: I love the concept of PlanetCare, but due to how often the cartridges need to be changed (30-60 days for a 2-person household), the smell of the used cartridges, and the cost, I don’t think this is ready for everyday household use (yet!). 

• Ease of Installation: Easy-ish (definitely depends on your washing machine setup)
• Does it work? Yes, maybe too well…
• Would I recommend it to my mom? Probably not, unfortuantely
• Price: $76-132
• Cons: It can be tricky to set up depending on your space. (Tricky, but not impossible!) You will also need to purchase replacement filters and send the old ones back. And you’re going to want to read about my experience first.

Like I said, I love the idea of the filter and I’m happy people are trying to come up with some sort of solution. We have to start somewhere! But it seems like there is still room for improvement with the PlanetCare.

PlanetCare is addressing the fact that wastewater treatment plants weren’t set up to filter microplastics. And definitely not at these levels. I’m sure you see it in your rivers and streams, I see the plastic pollution in Lake Michigan everyday.

PlanetCare is basically trying to help you filter out those plastics before they get to wastewater treatment plants.

It’s also worth noting that PlanetCare is co-funded by the European Union and has independently tested their filters. 

The studies can be found on their website, but a few quick highlights:

• One washing cycle without the PlanetCare filter released 1403.95 mg of plastic fibers down the drain. Under the same conditions, a cycle with the filter was able to collect & prevent 1105.59 mg of fibers.

• 6 PES-Fleece jackets were washed at 40 degrees Celsius, without detergent, dirt, or other additives with and without a PlanetCare filter. 15,480 fibers were found from the sample without PlanetCare and 3,040 were found using the filter.

Ease of PlanetCare setup

The installation wasn’t easy for me. We’re in a city apartment so we had to pull our stacked washer and dryer completely out to get behind it and set everything up. 

If you have a larger space (like a laundry room) then I think setting it up will be easy.

The main thing you’re doing here is detaching your water hose and connecting it to the PlanetCare filter. 

All-in-all it was difficult installing the filter because of our setup. If we hadn’t just put our washer and dryer on a wheeled platform a few months prior this would have been (literally) impossible. 

Almost immediately, the filter fell off the side of the washing machine. Fortunately none of the tubes came loose so we set it on the floor for a while. Since it was full of water and heavy, that worked. After a little bit we just ended up screwing it to the wall. 

I really recommend checking your space first, before deciding whether you want to get a PlanetCare washing machine filter: 

• Physically climb in where you need to go
• Touch the tubes you need to touch
• Make sure you can get to them
• And make sure they move 

Ease of using PlanetCare filter 

You literally don’t need to do anything once the filter is installed. I would recommend keeping an eye on it for the first couple of loads and ensure nothing is leaking. Otherwise it does its own thing! 

Ease of cleaning PlanetCare filter 

The concept: 

Each filter cartridge is said to last 20-30 washes. When it’s ready to be changed, the top part will pop open. Replacing the filter should be as easy as 6 steps: 

• Take it off its clip/screw
• Unscrew the bottom part
• Twist off the old filter cartridge
• Twist on the new filter cartridge
• Screw the bottom part back on
• Reclip/rescrew the entire filter.

The real life: the filter needs to be changed often.

I do laundry about once a week, and there are two people in my household. I wasn’t expecting it to need to be changed so quickly but for each of my three filters, the indicator to change it popped up between 30-60 days after I replaced it.

Why it needs to be changed often is… annoying.

The filter is for microplastics but the technology can’t separate particulates (yet). So two things are working against me:

• my two fluffy cats
• and all of the items that I have managed to accumulate that are cotton/natural fibers 

Both of those things can decrease the amount of washes a cartridge is good for. 

If you live in a pet-free home, your filters might last longer than mine.

Changing the filter is annoying and inconvenient (I can’t do it by myself).

In theory, it should be easy. You just follow the steps above. But because the cartridge is full of water, it’s extremely heavy and can’t be tipped (or the water would come out). I had to have my husband unscrew it while I held a bucket underneath. 

Unscrewing the old filter and putting on the new one is easy. It’s just the water that makes it difficult.

The smell… 

This was the worst part. You know the smell from the end of the summer after an inflatable pool has been sitting on top of the grass? That’s what this smells like. 

If it was just the water coming out of it when you change it, no biggie. BUT the actual filter smells like it too. Eventually I figured out that it helps to squeeze out the filter when you change it (with a pair of gloves on!) but letting it dry out (so that I can store it / sent it back) was awful. 

I don’t have a patio or an outdoor area, so I put it in a pot next to the window and cracked the window. It took about 48 hours for the smell to stop being noticeable, but it never truly goes away. PlanetCare’s website says this part is normal and I honestly think it would be fine if you had a garage or patio or something — but I don’t.

I could theoretically send one filter back at a time so that I don’t have to deal with the smell, but they want you to let them build up and then send back 12 at a time. This is not possible with my current living situation… I have nowhere to keep these smelly replacement filters while they wait to be sent back.

The customer service…

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a great experience with the PlanetCare customer service. 😔 Since the filter didn’t work with my setup, I wanted to send back the 3 filters I used so they could recycle them. (I am gifting the device itself to a friend who lives in a house and will hopefully find it easier to use!). I had to go back and forth with their customer service team a LOT in order for them to finally send me a shipping label, and then they charged me for it. I realize that my request was a little out of the ordinary (they usually only take back 12 used filters at a time), but it should NOT have been this difficult to send the 3 filters back to them.

Does it work? 

Definitely! You can tell it’s catching stuff because the used filter was super gross. You can’t really see inside because of the setup of the cartridge, but there is definitely gunk. 

Would I recommend it to my mom?

I think so, but with a caveat! My mom is into sustainability and about to retire. I think she wouldn’t mind the setup but I think the frequency with which the filters need to be changed would be frustrating — and it’s expensive if you’re going through 1-2 filters every 60 days. She does have plenty of outdoor areas to keep old filters but I still don’t think she would like the smell.

Again, it has potential, but there’s definitely room for improvement.

Some other cool things I like about PlanetCare:

• In the kit I received, PlanetCare provides an adapter to help fit the sizing requirements of your water tubes. 

• They have a setup manual very clearly linked on their website, even though they also provide a QR code with instructions in the box.

• The filter can go either on the left or right side of the washer. 

• There’s a setting ring on the replacement indicator to let you know when it’s full

• The kit included a total of 3 filters which helps lower upfront costs and maintenance. 

• This concept of a closed loop solution. The used filters get sent back where “95% is cleaned, fitted with a new filtering medium and sent back to customers. 5% (the caught fibers) is collected for recycling.” (from the website). 

All in all I think it’s a great concept, especially if microplastic pollution is something that’s extremely important to you! 

If you do decide to try out PlanetCare, you can use the code THEFILTERY10 for 10% off.

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Pros & Cons of All 3 Brands (In a Nutshell!)

Brand	Pros	Cons
Cora Ball	– Easy to use – No installation required – No filter changes needed – Long-lasting (6+ years)	– You cannot use it with items that have tassels or loose strings. (Or if you do, those items need to be put in a separate bag.) – Can’t capture as much microplastic as the other options (said to catch 31%) – Made of plastic
Guppyfriend Bag	– Easy to use – No installation required – No filter changes needed – Lasts several years – Very effective at catching microplastics (said to catch 79-100%) – Gentle on clothes	– You cannot do ALL of your laundry inside a Guppyfriend bag. – Made of plastic
PlanetCare Washing Machine Filter	– One-time installation, then you do your laundry as normal – European Union co-funded – Most effective option (said to filter 98% of microplastics) – Closed-loop solution (filters are cleaned and reused)	– Installation can be tricky depending on space – Filters need frequent replacement (every 30-60 days) – Used filters smell bad – Expensive due to ongoing filter replacements – Made of plastic

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Even More Microplastic Filters for the Washing Machine

Here are a couple other options you may want to check out:

• Filtrol
• Samsung

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Let’s Talk Micros.

Here at The Filtery, we talk a lot about how to reduce toxic chemicals and plastics in your life — plastic-free toothbrushes, water filters that can remove microplastics, organic cotton workout clothes, food storage & baggies, and much, much more. 

But what exactly are they, and why are they problematic?

Microplastics Carry Toxic Chemicals and Threaten Our Environment

Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic, the size of a pencil eraser and smaller. Eventually, they become nanoplastics because plastic does not degrade, it only breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces.

Nanoplastics can be so smaller that you can’t even see them.

Microplastics and nanoplastics are fragments that come from the breakdown of larger plastics like shoes, clothing, and single-use water bottles, as well as from nurdles (which are plastic pellets that are melted down to make all kinds of consumer goods).

They’ve been found in oceans, the air we breathe, and even in the Mariana Trench, the deepest known point on Earth that humans clearly aren’t hanging around in. 

Microplastics have also infiltrated our food chain—fish, crops fertilized with sewage sludge, and even the air and household dust contain these pollutants. 

More recent studies reveal microplastics in human organs, including the heart, liver, and kidneys although the full impact on human health is still being studied.

We think about microplastics as an ocean problem; 80% of marine pollution is plastic. But microplastics are quite literally everywhere. Especially in our clothes. 

Those nylon workout leggings, polyester blankets, acrylic sweaters, & polypropylene rugs. Every time we wear synthetic fibers, they shed a little bit. And every time we wash synthetic fibers, they shed even more.

Microplastics are not only problematic in and of themselves, but they also act as carriers for other toxic chemicals. In other words: things like flame retardants and heavy metals *stick* to microplastics, making those particles even more toxic when we ingest them.

Laundry Is A Major Source of Microplastic Pollution

70% of our clothes are made with synthetic fibers. That number has been growing since DuPont bought the rights to produce polyester in the 1940s and it is expected to continue growing. 

There are definitely pros to synthetic fabrics, and I get it. I’m not an organic cotton legging girly. (Abbie is though!) Personally, I prefer to thrift leggings that other people discard after a few uses.

And that’s okay! But we also need to acknowledge synthetic clothing sheds basically all the time, especially in the washing machine. A single load of laundry can release millions of microfibers into the wastewater stream.

Wastewater treatment plants can capture 50-99% of particles, but even a 99% filtration rate means that millions of fibers still escape into the environment. 

The Role of Wastewater Treatment Plants in Microplastic Pollution

We commonly think about plastic pollution as just trash — garbage trucks overflowing, bad characters dumping trash into the ocean, and accidental oopsies of your trash escaping you (times billions of people).

But it’s more than that.

Wastewater treatment plants were designed to sanitize and stop infectious diseases that come from mixing fecal and drinking water from homes, industries, and businesses. Most of them are NOT fully equipped to handle microplastics (or other things, like PFAS or pharmaceuticals).

While some wastewater treatment plants can filter out anywhere from 50-99% of microplastics, due to a lack of standardized and modernized protocols and removal technologies, it’s difficult to accurately detect and remove them from wastewater. 

The remaining microplastics are discarded with the clean water and end up back in our drinking water, in sewage sludge (which is frequently used as fertilizer), and dumped into waterways. This allows microplastics to seep into soil, groundwater, and eventually, our food.

This is all compounded by aging U.S. infrastructure and capacity issues. 15% of wastewater treatment plants are overburdened & exceeding capacity. 

Water service disruptions, like those seen in Texas during recent winter storms or in Jackson, MS, highlight the vulnerabilities in our water treatment systems. Everyone should have access to clean, safe, & sanitized water. Part of that now includes looking at how we’re contributing to the problem.

Starting small by capturing microfiber shedding right from your laundry is a good beginning. A beginning to awareness, to bigger and better solutions, and to a future with cleaner water.

How You Can Reduce Microplastic Shedding in the Laundry and Wash a Little More Sustainably

• Wash less (here are a bunch of tips for how to do that!)

• Use cold water

• Use less detergent — and better detergent because many pods and sheets actually contain plastic

• Line dry on a clothesline whenever possible because the dryer causes the clothes to release more fibers

• Also, ditch the dryer sheets because most of them are literally just pieces of plastic

Will you be trying out one of these laundry microfiber catchers?

If you have any other questions that weren’t answered in this review, let us know in the comments!

And if you find this sort of info helpful sign up for Filtered Fridays. In Abbie’s (free) weekly newsletter, she shares new reviews, toxin-related news, greenwashing examples, and more.