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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.
- The Guardian
- press release from Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a manufacturers' group
- Detroit News
- The Hill blog
- Consumerist
- Smithsonian
- Center for Effective Government
- TreeHugger
In July, the International Campaign Against Microbeads in Cosmetics has made a list of products which contained microbeads.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday December 13 2015, @03:38AM
Has this actually been studied? because if it's like other trash, it's probably an improved habitat to something, which in turn feeds something else. (Kinda like how junk cars have been used as foundations for coral reefs.)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Sunday December 13 2015, @09:10AM
Yeah, it's been studied. The problem isn't so much the nets and buoys as it is plastic particles. As plastics float around, they degrade, but never really disappear. Eventually they break apart into very small pieces that look like plankton and other small critters that fish like to eat. This isn't very good for them for fairly obvious reasons.
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