WHAT MICROBEADS ARE |
QUICK FACTS |
Microbeads are a form of micro plastics that come in many shapes, but are generally considered to a be a plastic between the size of 1 and 5 mm. The porous and flexible plastics with a low melting point and easy transition phase is utilized in many beauty products used daily. These products are often flushed down pipes and end up in our waterways, eaten by animals, in turn eaten by humans. These products break down in metamorphosis, releasing harmful toxins going through this transition, breaking down into tiny pieces that mix with zooplankton and enter the food system. They are harmful to our environment, and ourselves. The notion we are missing as a culture, especially in the business culture of financial efficiency, is that the environment and humankind are inseparable; when we damage the environment we are damaging ourselves.
When did the comfort of modern society become more important the the natural ecosystem? Microbeads were introduced into the beauty and cosmetic industry, ceramics, for their uncanny ability to porous composition. Microbeads can be found in scrubs, toothpaste, lip gloss, sunblock, and other products most people do not even realize contain plastics, which they release into the environment. We are literally rubbing tiny pieces of plastics onto our face, into our teeth, in our hair, and into our bodies. Why would we do this with products people would not dare to ingest? We are what we eat, and we are eating trash. Does it make sense to use something harmful to the environment, which lasts lifetimes, in a product we will only use once? Since microbeads can be as small as 5 micrometers, waste treatment plants are unable to filter these out from the water that enters our ecosystem. These tiny spheres invade wildlife and aquatic habitats where they are consumed by fish, seabirds, marine mammals and other forms of wildlife with adverse effects. Some of the reported effects of ingesting microbeads include cellular necrosis, inflammation, laceration in the digestive tract, liver toxicity and disruptions in the endocrine system. The rate at which microbeads pollute the environment is especially alarming; scientists have estimated that nearly 808 trillion microbeads are washed down the drain everyday in the United States. In the San Francisco Bay Estuary alone, billions of microbeads are released and over 471 million microbeads enter the San Francisco Bay every day. This means that after one year, the amount of 5 micrometer-sized microbeads could cover one and a half football fields! Cities and counties across the United States have already begun banning the sales of microbeads after witnessing their adverse effects on the environment. Lawmakers in Washington DC have begun efforts to phase out microbeads from personal hygiene products and over-the-counter drugs by 2018, but some forms of microbeads will still be permissible such as biodegradable ones. Some experts are saying they're proven to biodegrade in lab environments, but it goes untested if they'll degrade at the bottom of a lake. In order to sustain life on this planet, we must learn to work in a way that is symbiotic with our counterparts. In surrounding habitats, and the habitats affected in domino-affect of our behavior, we may end up hurting ourselves if we are not considering the consequences of our behavior. An accumulation of environmentally irresponsible products due to a selfish habit and cheap manufacturing of a component used in many cleaning/beauty products. The very structure of their make-up, created for efficiency and convenience, is the very thing that is the reason these products pass through water filtration systems, polluting our water and land. Distributed across the country in a multitude of products for first-world beauty maintenance, these products have found their way into most waterways and into our food. Manufacturers and businesses who use microbeads in their products are seeing the efficiency of their use, and the consequences of their use are often overlooked or ignored. Turning our backs on the consequences of our actions is not only immoral and lazy, it is disconnected and delusional to think our actions do not have a reaction. Microbeads are one of many inventions, a prolonging pandemic of products we use only once, but their harmful effects we are stuck with for an entire lifetime, and our descendants lifetimes. |
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YOU WILL TAKE MY BEADS
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CAN'T YOU JUST TELL US WITH A FUNNY CARTOON? |
References:
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/20/microbeads-exfoliation_n_4815133.html
- http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/psoriasis/default.htm?names-dropdown=CO
- http://www.beatthemicrobead.org/en/science
- http://marinedebrissolutions.com/Main-Menu/Plastic-Makers-Take-Action/Plastic-Microbead-Facts.html
- http://chemicalsafetyfacts.org/answering-questions-about-microbeads/
- http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/12/07/us-house-passes-microbead-legislation/76947570/
- https://conbio.org/images/content_policy/03.24.15_Microbead_Brief_Statement.pdf
- http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-09-30/why-canada-banning-microbeads
- http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/acs.est.5b03909