{"id":40013,"date":"2025-10-27T07:18:59","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T07:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/essex-inventor-up-for-earthshot-prize-for-tackling-microplastics\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T07:18:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T07:18:59","slug":"essex-inventor-up-for-earthshot-prize-for-tackling-microplastics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/essex-inventor-up-for-earthshot-prize-for-tackling-microplastics\/","title":{"rendered":"Essex inventor up for Earthshot Prize for tackling microplastics"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"MatterMatter<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Adam Root said microplastics were one of the “biggest pollution sources on the planet”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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An engineer shortlisted for a global prize by the Prince of Wales said his invention was created at his mother-in-law’s dining table.<\/p>\n

Adam Root built filters that remove microplastics from water pumped out by washing machines and industrial units, preventing them from reaching the ocean.<\/p>\n

“It’s one of the greatest challenges of our generation and people don’t really understand or know about it,” said the 35-year-old, from Saffron Walden in Essex.<\/p>\n

His company, Matter, could win \u00a31m at the Earthshot awards on 5 November, whose winners are commended for innovative solutions they create to help the planet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Microplastics have been found on every part of Earth, including buried in Antarctic sea ice<\/a> and inside the guts of animals living in the deepest ocean trenches.<\/p>\n

Concerns have persisted over their potential risk to human health, being prominent in bottled drinking water and marine life<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"MatterMatter<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The filters prevent microfibres from leaving washing machines and entering mainstream waterways<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mr Root told BBC Essex’s Sonia Watson that microplastics had become one of the “biggest pollution sources on the planet”.<\/p>\n

“I was looking at how we solve that and started developing solutions,” said the inventor, who built the prototype after leaving his engineering job eight years ago.<\/p>\n

He said creating Regen – his self-cleaning, reusable product – was “challenging” and was the result of four years of work in a laboratory.<\/p>\n

“I was also working off my mother-in-law’s dining table for about nine months,” recalled Mr Root, whose head office is now in Bristol.<\/p>\n

“I then upgraded to working out of a stable for a little while in the rural parts of Essex, and eventually made it ‘big time’ and got a unit on a turkey farm.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"AdamAdam Root<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Mr Root used all sorts of makeshift offices to design and build his filters<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mr Root was supported by a \u00a3250 grant from The Prince’s Trust, now The King’s Trust, to begin building his invention.<\/p>\n

He also had the support of his wife, who gave up her job and helped.<\/p>\n

The business started off building filters for household washing machines, but has since raised more than \u00a315m for its work and employs about 45 people.<\/p>\n

“We have also scaled [the filter] up to work on an industrial scale, so that’s millions of litres of water, rather than hundreds of litres of water,” Mr Root added. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"UniversityUniversity of Manchester<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Microplastics are particles that measure less than 5mm and cause pollution by entering natural ecosystems<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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He said the device was now being used in textile factories across the world.<\/p>\n

“Me and my wife have been together since we were 14, so we’ve been through some wild stuff,” the inventor said.<\/p>\n

His company is one of three competitors shortlisted in Earthshot’s “revive our oceans” category, each of which were selected by Prince William.<\/p>\n

Some of the finalists in other categories include entire countries and cities.<\/p>\n

“It was a little bit strange. There’s the country of Barbados, a city in China… and here’s Adam,” Mr Root said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matter Adam Root said microplastics were one of the “biggest pollution sources on the planet” An engineer shortlisted for a global prize by the Prince of Wales said his invention was created at his mother-in-law’s dining table. Adam Root built filters that remove microplastics from water pumped out by washing machines and industrial units, preventing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[6556,7691,12407,12408,2372,2961],"class_list":["post-40013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-earthshot","tag-essex","tag-inventor","tag-microplastics","tag-prize","tag-tackling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40015,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40013\/revisions\/40015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}