HONG KONG: CNN Not to alarm you, but your daily morning regimen might be harming the planet’s oceans, lakes and rivers.
What’s the culprit? Microbeads. They are tiny, plastic beads that many companies have added to body scrubs, cosmetics, soaps — essentially hundreds of products, to create an exfoliating sensation for users.
There’s more than eight trillion microbeads entering aquatic habitats every day in the United States alone, according to a new study published in Environmental Science & Technology. It’s enough microbeads to cover 300 tennis courts daily.
A microbead is any plastic that is smaller than 1 mm, about the size of a pinhead. They are designed to wash down drains, but have added to the increased microplastic debris littering the Earth’s oceans and many freshwater lakes, the study states. Due to their size, plastic microbeads are difficult to clean up on a large scale.
Microbeads have even been subtly added to products like toothpaste. Despite their tiny size, they still pose a threat, according to Stephanie Green of Oregon State University and co-author of the study.
“Part of this problem can now start with brushing your teeth in the morning,” she said. “Contaminants like these microbeads are not something our waste-water treatment plants were built to handle, and the overall amount of contamination is huge,” she said.
The eight trillion microbeads entering the United States’ aquatic habitats on a daily basis is only a fraction of what is being dumped in waste-water treatment facilities. Eight hundred trillion of these plastic beads settle into a sludge and transform into a runoff from sewage plants and go on to pollute the waterways.
“We’re facing a plastic crisis and don’t even know it,” Green explained.
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