Microbeads: Tiny plastic timebombs - the pollutants in our cosmetics

Locutus

Locutus

Adorable Deplorable
Jun 18, 2007
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Millions of people are unwittingly pouring hundreds of tons of tiny plastic beads down the drain. These can persist in the environment for more than 100 years, and have been found to contaminate a wide variety of freshwater and marine wildlife, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Few consumers realise that many cosmetic products, such as facial scrubs, toothpastes and shower gels, now contain many thousands of microplastic beads which have been deliberately added by the manufacturers of more than 100 consumer products over the past two decades.

Plastic microbeads, which are typically less than a millimetre wide and are too small to be filtered by sewage-treatment plants, are able to carry deadly toxins into the animals that ingest them, including those in the human food chain such as fish, mussels and crabs, scientists said.

While many people have assiduously tried to recycle their plastic waste, cosmetics companies have at the same time been quietly adding hundreds of cubic metres of plastics such as polyethylene to products that are deliberately designed to be washed into waste-water systems – one estimate suggests that, in the US alone, up to 1,200 cubic metres of microplastic beads are washed down the drains each year.


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Exclusive: Tiny plastic timebomb - the pollutants in our cosmetics - Science - News - The Independent
 
MHz

MHz

Time Out
Mar 16, 2007
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What does the plastic do, make the cosmetics thicker as the weight thing doesn't seem to add anything to the price? Since it is the 'public' that uses the make-up that would seem to be the 'cure' also and I doubt any 'person' will give up make-up to save anything let alone a fish.
Be a great way to sell off contamination from Japan as being something else. When sewage is treated for toxins whi would the 'little balls' not come into contact with 'the chems used to sterilize the sewage' and when discharged they should be as clean as any sewage from a plant of the same design (21st century) where no cosmetics were used at all. If deadly microbes are escaping in the liquid then the whole system is flawed and not just because some plastic is escaping. The balls should be used in Japan to help with the cleanup that isn't going so well.

From some reports make-up is more harmful to the user than eating any fish would be.
 
S

Sal

Hall of Fame Member
Sep 29, 2007
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Locutus said:
Millions of people are unwittingly pouring hundreds of tons of tiny plastic beads down the drain. These can persist in the environment for more than 100 years, and have been found to contaminate a wide variety of freshwater and marine wildlife, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Few consumers realise that many cosmetic products, such as facial scrubs, toothpastes and shower gels, now contain many thousands of microplastic beads which have been deliberately added by the manufacturers of more than 100 consumer products over the past two decades.

Plastic microbeads, which are typically less than a millimetre wide and are too small to be filtered by sewage-treatment plants, are able to carry deadly toxins into the animals that ingest them, including those in the human food chain such as fish, mussels and crabs, scientists said.

While many people have assiduously tried to recycle their plastic waste, cosmetics companies have at the same time been quietly adding hundreds of cubic metres of plastics such as polyethylene to products that are deliberately designed to be washed into waste-water systems – one estimate suggests that, in the US alone, up to 1,200 cubic metres of microplastic beads are washed down the drains each year.


more


Exclusive: Tiny plastic timebomb - the pollutants in our cosmetics - Science - News - The Independent
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great, I heard of this quite a while ago and tried to forget it because it is insidious and points once again to consumers purposely kept ignorant

MHz said:
What does the plastic do, make the cosmetics thicker as the weight thing doesn't seem to add anything to the price? Since it is the 'public' that uses the make-up that would seem to be the 'cure' also and I doubt any 'person' will give up make-up to save anything let alone a fish.
Be a great way to sell off contamination from Japan as being something else. When sewage is treated for toxins whi would the 'little balls' not come into contact with 'the chems used to sterilize the sewage' and when discharged they should be as clean as any sewage from a plant of the same design (21st century) where no cosmetics were used at all. If deadly microbes are escaping in the liquid then the whole system is flawed and not just because some plastic is escaping. The balls should be used in Japan to help with the cleanup that isn't going so well.

From some reports make-up is more harmful to the user than eating any fish would be.
Click to expand...
it's the little scrub beads that make us feel clean because we are so dirty...ya know...we only bathe once or twice a day, clean our clothes constantly, do our wash a couple of times a week... just more pressure to consume. There's a Dutch app to scan products while shopping. I don't know if it works in Canada or not.

Beat the Microbead | Plastic Soup Foundation

And who knows if they will mark the products correctly so they can be scanned.

I don't trust any of these companies to tell the truth about our food or products we use. In Canada for instance companies can say their product is not tested on animals as long as they weren't tested on Canadian animals. Lies, lies and more lies. I now pay more for my products and buy them at places that actually do not use animals testing (as far as I can know from the research).
 
petros

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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Low Earth Orbit
The companies are wide open about the micro beads in god only knows how many commercials over the years. Nothing was hidden.
 
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