The U.S. government has finally made the first move to combat the microbeads.
According to the report by Business Insider, U.S. President Barack Obama just signed into law a bill banning the production of personal care products such as soaps, toothpastes and body washes that contains the harmful ingredient, microbeads.
The law, titled "Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015," prohibits the "manufacture and introduction or delivery for introduction into interstate commerce" of rinse-off cosmetic products that contain purposely-added plastic microbeads.
Through the law, microbeads will be phased out in consumer products in the next few years. The phase-out process will begin with a ban on manufacturing the microbeads on July 2017 followed by the ceasing of manufacturing and sales of products that contains the harmful ingredient by 2018 and 2019, respectively.
As pointed by Beat the Microbead, an international campaign against microbeads in cosmetics, microbeads are tiny particles of plastics that have been used by cosmetic manufacturers as abrasives in facial and body products. Described as less than a millimeter in diameter, these microbeads are too small to filter, thereby letting it flow directly to the ocean.
The site highlighted that these microbeads are eventually eaten or absorbed by sea creatures. Thus, it is highly possible that these tiny plastics can be transferred back to humans through the sea foods being consumed.
Beat the Microbead also emphasized that these harmful ingredients are not biodegradable and are already impossible to remove when submerged in the marine environment.
The Business Insider report also mentioned a release by the Wildlife Conservation Society saying that almost 19 tons of microbeads are washed down the drain every year in New York City alone. It also pointed a 2013 study which revealed that almost 1.7 million of tiny plastic particles per square kilometer were found in Lake Erie, a part of the Great Lakes region where many debris end up.
"Microbeads are highly damaging to the natural environment and the wildlife that live there. Because natural alternatives already exist, a ban on their use in personal care products makes perfect sense," Wildlife Conservation Society said in a statement.
Amid this banning of microbeads in U.S., the Independent also reported that there are now calls in the U.K. to take action regarding the use of the said ingredient.
Beat the Microbead has compiled a list of products that likely contain microbeads. The said list can be accessed here.
Do you know about the microbeads? What do you think of the banning of microbeads and the product that contain it? Let us know in the comments below.