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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday December 12 2015, @01:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the non-biodegradeable dept.

Some personal care products, such as shower gels, soaps, shampoo, facial scrubs and toothpastes, are formulated with plastic microbeads. The colorful particles, made usually from polyethylene (but sometimes from nylon, polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate or polymethyl methacrylate), serve as abrasives and add visual appeal to the products. Unfortunately, they are small enough to pass through sewage treatment plants into waterways and oceans, where they can persist. In the aquatic environment, the microbeads can absorb other pollutants and can be ingested by animals, resulting in an increase in the amount of those pollutants in the food chain.

Under the proposed legislation, called the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, manufacturing could continue until July 1, 2017 and sales would be phased out from 2018 through 2019. The House bill was sponsored by Republican Fred Upton of Michigan and Democrat Frank Pallone, Jr. of New Jersey. A similar bill is under consideration in the Senate.

In July, the International Campaign Against Microbeads in Cosmetics has made a list of products which contained microbeads.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday December 12 2015, @04:22PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 12 2015, @04:22PM (#275434) Journal
    You need to have laws that make sense as well. For example, what was so wrong with microbeads, that Congress couldn't have just required that they be biodegradable (I'm taking at face value the research on the supposed pollution enhancing properties of microbeads)? I'd rather have no regulation at all than a complete ban. It's an interesting technology and we're holding ourselves back once again rather than doing something rational.

    But sure, it's the Tea Party's fault somehow, not the huge amount of harmful, onerous, and stupid law and regulation that Congress passes (in multiple meanings of the word).

    but not so much since the Tea Party came along and threatened primary challenges against Republican incumbents that failed to pass litmus tests of ideological purity.

    Everyone else does it too. Maybe you want to lead by example some day?

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @08:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @08:38PM (#275514)

    From what I read, opponents of microbeads are often against an exception for biodegradable plastics. Illinois made such an exception, without defining the conditions nor time scale for biodegradation. In October, California passed a law [latimes.com] which will ban all types of plastics; it will go into effect in 2018 through 2020. In that article, a representative of Californians Against Waste spoke in favor of the law, no plastic in these products [...] was always the objective" and praising the absence of "loopholes that would allow for use of potentially harmful substitutes."

    The Guardian [theguardian.com] has an article saying that

    The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), an international standards organization, does not currently have a test specification or methodology that could be used to test the rate of biodegradation of microbeads in water.

    and noting that when an engineering professor tested two types of supposedly biodegradable plastics, he found drastic differences in the rate at which they decomposed: after 6 months, 30% of polyhydroxyalkanoate or PHA had decayed (about the same as for plant material) whereas less than 5% of the polylactic acid (PLA) samples had decayed.

    The NGO 5 Gyres has a page [5gyres.org] explaining their opposition to what they call "the biodegradable loophole."

    Another NGO, the Society for Conservation Biology, is critical of the Illinois law, writing [conbio.org]:

    Loophole: “Biodegradable” is not defined in terms of %
    degradation under a specified time frame in the environment,
    allowing microbeads to be made from plastics like PLA—a
    material that is not marine biodegradable.

    They cite California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery Publication #DRRR-2012-1435 [ca.gov], which appears to be the same source used by The Guardian. That report has a photo showing the PLA sample after a year's immersion in water, looking pristine.

    The Plastic Soup Foundation gave cautious support [beatthemicrobead.org] to an effort to build a bioplastics factory, saying "When microbeads are truly biodegradable and can completely dissolve in the natural environment, then we applaud wholeheartedly this new development.”

    • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Reziac on Sunday December 13 2015, @03:44AM

      by Reziac (2489) on Sunday December 13 2015, @03:44AM (#275668) Homepage

      "opponents of microbeads are often against an exception for biodegradable plastics"

      That's because this type of environazi is not working toward a cleaner environment; they're working toward the end of human civilization.

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @02:19AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 14 2015, @02:19AM (#275974)

        Because it will all come crashing down if we don't exfoliate daily.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 14 2015, @11:54AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 14 2015, @11:54AM (#276070) Journal
          It's part of a consistent pattern. A particularly notorious example is nuclear power, where any attempt to improve nuclear power, be it by building safer, better designs, recycling fuel rods, or safer storage schemes, is hotly and successfully resisted.