Don’t Microbead Yourself

By: Jasmine Montenegro

          As a daily activity in our hygiene routine the use of certain products such as scrubbers, face washes, body washes, cleaning supplies and even cosmetics had become very common. There is absolutely no problem in trying to be as clean as possible, what is being considered a problem is what is being used to maintain cleanness. According to recent studies, microbeads (particles that are being found on the products mentioned above) were designed to be discarded down the drain. These particles seem to be too small or tiny and could be thought that would not cause any harm, but what if you visualize millions of people using products with microbeads? Can you imagine yourself throwing down the drain a kilogram of microbeads per year? Now, can you imagine a million people throwing down the drain their kilogram of microbeads per year representing all the products that they used with microbeads during a year? To give you a better visualization on this, imagine to line side by side the 8 trillion of microbeads the US deal with daily, you will be able to cover 300 tennis court DAILY!!! There is a movement going on to ban the microbeads, this does not mean that there will not be a way to clean properly but to minimize the use of products with microbeads and go natural. There are natural products that can have the same effect and even better as those with microbeads. Every single effort will result in preventing the microbeads to become micro plastic pollution . 

       Figure1. Plastic Pollution Coalition. March 27, 2015.

Rochman, C. M., Kross, S. M., Armstrong, J., Bogan, M. T., Darling, E. S., Green, S. J., Smyth, A. R., Verissimo, D.  Scientific Evidence Supports a Ban on Microbeads. (2015). Retrieved October 28, 2016, from http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.5b03909

http://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2015/8/15/ppc-goes-after-california-microbead-polluters