I enjoy taking care of my skin with countless bottles of different face cleansers and moisturizers that have the great scented, scrubbing, fresh feeling microbeads in them. But what if all of that was about to change? What if the little 5mm beads were just out of every product on the shelf? Well folks, tell your skin goodbye because that day has come. In case you haven't already heard about this tiny tragedy (literally), the ban on our beauty supply microbeads is real.
There are over 100 hygiene and beauty products that contain the plastic microbeads in them. I have personally been the person to buy the cleanser that has the tiny scrubbers because, well, they scrub my skin and make me feel fresh to death. So how are these MICRObeads causing such a large controversy? All those beads that get flushed away have a small input on the plastic pollution. A bottle of face wash can contain up to 330,000 microbeads, which adds up to a lot of plastic going to waste. It is hard to think about how something so small and inconspicuous could really be that big of a deal.
As those thousands of microbeads get flushed down our drains they head straight to the waterways of the US. Sewage systems cannot catch the beads as they go through the system, so they end up right into the rivers and Great Lakes. Now what is so scary about that you may be asking? As the beads travel through your drain, through miles of sewage and chemicals *gag*, animals end up eating them! That fish you ate at that cool river side restaurant had probably ate some little beads that were then filled with toxins. Most of the animals who end up eating the beads, thinking they are eggs or plankton, actually end up dying from them. All of which is bad for the environment and fish farmers.
Though they are small, they are mighty. How these microbeads have help cause plastic pollution and kill water creatures baffles me. Instead of improving the sewage system, it has come to the conclusion to just ban the microbeads, it is cheaper. Illinois and California have been the first to pass the bill since 2014. By the end of July 1, 2017 all manufacturers will have stopped the production of products with microbeads by the MicroBead-Free Waters Act of 2015. Let the dirty break up begin with your skin and microbead-ed face wash. *sobs*
