‘You have to be where the pollution is’: the inventor hoping to fix your washing machine to stop microplastics

Matter Industries founder Adam Root has developed a filter to trap microfibres at home and on an industrial scale. But is it just a drop in the ocean?The dinky device slots seamlessly into the modest space above my washing machine. A pipe snakes down from it, drawing in wastewater from my clothes washes. At the end of each wash cycle, the machine makes a polite whirring noise: that’s the sound of the groundbreaking bit of technology working, according to its inventor, Adam Root. That invention i...