Most of us give little thought to what we wash down the drain each morning after scrubbing our faces and brushing our teeth, but some of it — specifically tiny bits of plastic called microbeads — hangs out in streams, lakes and seas and finds its way into the food chain.
Microbeads have been used in facial scrubs, hand soaps, toothpaste and other personal grooming products, providing more marketing value than actual cleansing ability. But as small and innocuous as they look coming out of a tube of facial scrub, the microbeads don’t biodegrade and are causing damage. Scientists studying the Great Lakes and ocean environments for several years have expressed concern that the polyethylene beads are damaging to the fish that eat them and also are serving as Trojan horses, carrying chemicals into the fish and other marine life that consume them and moving them on up the food chain.
Some state legislatures have addressed microbeads. A bill in Washington’s Legislature was reintroduced at the start of the first special session but has not seen further action. The bill, House Bill 1378, would have barred the products’ manufacture by 2018 and the sale of products containing them by 2020. California, as reported by the New York Times, passed legislation earlier this month that bans microbeads in products, joining six other states that have restricted their use.
Legislation also has been proposed in Congress, but laws at the state level are likely to have more immediate impact, assuming enough join in, as companies can’t usually afford to make two lines of the same product for different markets.
But consumers themselves might prove to be an even more influential force than legislatures. Corporations, even on the microbead issue, have shown themselves willing to make changes, if grudgingly so.
Proctor &Gamble, maker of Crest toothpastes, maintained last September that microbeads were safe and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but announced it had begun phasing out use of the microbeads in Crest products, a process that it will complete by March 2016. The microbeads in toothpaste serve only as a cosmetic marketing tool, offering no value in cleaning teeth. And some dentists had begun raising concerns that the tiny beads were becoming embedded in patients’ gums and potentially could have allowed a buildup of bacteria.
Proctor &Gamble, however, didn’t make the same decision for some of its Olay products that use the polyethylene beads. The microbeads also are prevalent in many products sold by Johnson &Johnson.
Consumers have the clout to ask companies to remove microbeads and replace them with ingredients that do break down in the environment and are just as effective as exfoliants, including ground-up nut shells, rice, stone-fruit pits and bamboo.
We pump enough plastics and chemicals into our environment without adding microbeads to that mix, especially when alternatives are available.
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