Competitors There are a few competitors within the microfiber capture space. The earliest of these we encountered was the Rozalia Project. They too are dedicated to stopping microfiber pollution, and their product also is built into the washing process. Their product, the Cora Ball, is inserted ito the wash with laundry, and captures loose fibers during the wash cycle. There are a number of problems we have identified with this product. Firstly, it is not yet available. There is no timeline on possible release or pre-order dates, but there is a kickstarter campaign which will start on March 28th. (9) The cost is likely also to be prohibitive. Whilst the price estimates have not been released, previous iterations of the product have been around the 75 dollar mark, considerably higher than the expected price of our product. Furthermore, they offer no statistics or even hints towards their capture rate. This indicates that it is not particularly high, and is very unlikely to exceed the close 90% capture rate which our testing has indicated is representative of our current prototypes efficiency. There are also problems associated with disposal of captured fibers. Previous products from the Rozalia team were expected to be sent back to the Rozalia project after certain usage, which is inconvenient for the consumer. The other, and most environmentally promising, competitor to our product is the Guppy Friend, based in Berlin, Germany. This product, developed in conjunction with Patagonia, is very similar to ours. Whilst they were developed independently, they share the same basic concept. They too have a very fine mesh bag into which synthetic garments are placed. Their product seems, at first glance, to have some advantages over ours. Firstly, they claim to have a 99% smicrofiber capture rate, which is greater than the rate of capture of our current prototype, although this is self-reported.(10) They are also further along the development phase than we are, and have 30 000 pre-orders, as well as plans to stock their product in Patagonia stores as well as
Competitors There are a few competitors within the microfiber capture space. The earliest of these we encountered was the Rozalia Project. They too are dedicated to stopping microfiber pollution, and their product also is built into the washing process. Their product, the Cora Ball, is inserted ito the wash with laundry, and captures loose fibers during the wash cycle. There are a number of problems we have identified with this product. Firstly, it is not yet available. There is no timeline on possible release or pre-order dates, but there is a kickstarter campaign which will start on March 28th. (9) The cost is likely also to be prohibitive. Whilst the price estimates have not been released, previous iterations of the product have been around the 75 dollar mark, considerably higher than the expected price of our product. Furthermore, they offer no statistics or even hints towards their capture rate. This indicates that it is not particularly high, and is very unlikely to exceed the close 90% capture rate which our testing has indicated is representative of our current prototypes efficiency. There are also problems associated with disposal of captured fibers. Previous products from the Rozalia team were expected to be sent back to the Rozalia project after certain usage, which is inconvenient for the consumer. The other, and most environmentally promising, competitor to our product is the Guppy Friend, based in Berlin, Germany. This product, developed in conjunction with Patagonia, is very similar to ours. Whilst they were developed independently, they share the same basic concept. They too have a very fine mesh bag into which synthetic garments are placed. Their product seems, at first glance, to have some advantages over ours. Firstly, they claim to have a 99% smicrofiber capture rate, which is greater than the rate of capture of our current prototype, although this is self-reported.(10) They are also further along the development phase than we are, and have 30 000 pre-orders, as well as plans to stock their product in Patagonia stores as well as
FiberFilter-Bioethics-Showcase.docx