Plastic: hidden in our facewash

You may not know what we mean by plastic microbeads. But they are found in many of the products we use every single day. They are mostly seen in the form of the tiny smooth round balls found in face washes and exfoliators. I know I've used these products without realising what the products actually contained. I don’t know what I thought they were made of, but I seemed to be shocked to find out they were tiny plastic balls!

Plastic Microbeads in beauty products. Image source: http://www.elliotlakestandard.ca/2015/03/24/ndp-passes-motion-to-ban-microbeads-from-personal-products

There has been a lot of buzz around these ‘microplastics’ in the last few years, with many companies pledging to remove them from their products and phase them out. In fact, almost all big brands have agreed to stop producing these ‘exfoliating balls’.

But why? These plastics get used in the shower, or sink and washed down the drain. They are so small that sewage treatment works aren't able to remove them, meaning they are released into the environment and eventually end up in the oceans. 

These beads are actually of a similar size to plankton, meaning they end up being eaten by marine life as they are misjudged to be tiny food particles. Copepods (see picture below) have been shown to ingest these beads. The plastic has no nutritional value and cannot be digested, this reduces the feeding and growth rate of these animals. Mussels have also been shown to uptake these microbeads, which can stay in their bodies for 40+ days! Ever eaten a mussel and found something hard and crunchy? Maybe you were chewing on some plastic yourself!

Copepod - a marine zooplankton at the base of the food web. Ingested plastic marked fluorescent green. Image source: https://marinelitterblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/microplastic-ingestion-by-zooplankton/

In addition to this, the plastic has been shown to stick toxins from the environment onto its surface. These toxins are then ingested by the animals along with the microbeads and can cause adverse effects from endocrine disruption to cancer, having the potential to adversely effect whole marine populations and food webs.

So, even though the major companies have pledged to remove microbeads from their products, most of these pledges have not yet been fulfilled. Us as consumers have a part to play, we have a choice of which ‘face scrub’ to buy. Next time look at the product and see if it contains plastic, and if it does, perhaps buy an alternative instead...