Activists want to ban microbeads in products
http://sailorsforthesea.org
An ad campaign image from SailorsfortheSea.org against microbeads.
Environmentalists on Tuesday pressed lawmakers to take further action to keep ecosystems free of potentially toxic plastics by banning tiny plastic particles from body soap, face wash, toothpaste and other personal care products.
"Plastic is plastic no matter what, nature doesn't take care of the mess. And just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there," Ellen Curran, director of communications for Women Working for Oceans, said. "Out of site out of mind, that mentality is harming our health."
Microbeads, defined as plastic particles measuring less than five millimeters, are commonly found in personal care products, many times labeled as "exfoliating" or "deep cleansing."
But those beads wash down the drain and are too small to be filtered out of wastewater and ultimately are discharged into natural waterways, where they could enter our food pyramid by being eaten by zooplankton.
"As the zooplankton are ingested by larger and larger forms of ocean life, eventually they can and will be ingested by the fish all of us eat," Louise Bowditch, a Brookline resident who works for the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, told the Committee on Public Health.
The bill Curran and Bowditch support (S 463) would ban the manufacture of products containing microbeads beginning Dec. 31, 2018 and would ban the sale of such products one year later.
Last month, the committee gave a favorable report to a similar bill (H 1934) filed by Rep. Carolyn Dykema and the U.S. House last week passed a bill to ban cosmetics that include synthetic microbeads by Jan. 1, 2018.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments