About 8 trillion Plastic Microbeads enter US Water Bodies Every Day

“We argue that the scientific evidence regarding microplastic supports legislation calling for a removal of plastic microbeads from personal care products”, added Rochman.

Commenting on the issue, Ms. Green said, “Part of this problem can now start with brushing your teeth in the morning”. She said that the wastewater treatment plants were not designed for handling microbeads which are quite durable.

“We’re facing a plastic crisis and don’t even know it”,

said Stephanie Green, co-author of the new study, in a news release.

As the plastic beads are very small in size, they easily slip through water filtration systems. In the You can include.S. alone, about 8 zillion microbeads are changed down the extract from day to day, new research disclose.

According to the paper led by Chelsea Rochman from the University of California/Davis, prohibiting microbeads from entering wastewater treatment reservoir will climactically safeguard the quality of water, the wildlife and the resources that human use.

The only way to protect marine life-and ourselves, because really, who wants to eat plastic?-wrote the researchers, is an out-and-out worldwide ban on microbeads. That’s enough to cover more than 300 tennis courts. Many companies, such as Johnson and Johnson, Colgate-Palmolive, Proctor and Gamble, L’Oreal, and Unilever have made moves to take microbeads out of their products.

Along with the use of “microbeads” in personal care items, many companies also use them in microscopy techniques, fluid visualization, fluid flow analysis and biomedical and health science research purposes.

Furthermore, the researchers say, numerous bans put in place by individual states aren’t cutting it. They tend to contain loopholes allowing for “biodegradable” plastics – many of which only degrade ever so slightly before settling in for a long residence in oceans and rivers. “Another 800 trillion or so end up in the sludgy runoff from sewage plants”, reports The Washington Post, “which can go on to pollute waterways as well”.

The researchers said that the microplastic beads are able to transfer different contaminants to animals that cause effects that sometimes are toxic.

Thus, the study concludes, “The probability of risk from microbead pollution is high, while the solution to this problem is simple”.

They suggest that many microbeads are used in personal care products that are not considered “rinse-off”, or those which are meant to be removed after application on the skin or hair, such as deodorants and cleaners.