Stakeholders in Microbead Pollution

Many face washes and toothpastes contain microbeads that claim to exfoliate and renew your skin, and clean your teeth. In fact, the face wash that I use from Mary Kay contains the tiny beads as well as my toothpaste. Aveeno’s positively radiant skin brightening daily scrub also has them (“In the Name of Beauty”). Even though Aveeno puts so much emphasis on how natural their products are, the microbeads in the wash are tiny balls of plastic. When constructing this wash, the producers had the customers’ skin in mind. However, no one thought about how these microbeads could affect the environment after you wash them down the sink. The microbeads are made of polyethylene, which is the most common plastic in the world. It is used to make shampoo bottles, plastic bags, water bottles, and more. The author of Nature claims that these polyethylene beads are being mistaken for food by marine life, which in return poisons them. Even if you are not an animal lover or a humane rights activist, this should be something that concerns everyone, especially if you eat fish. If the fish are consuming the polyethylene beads, which are poisoning them, then when humans eat the fish they too are eating the toxic chemicals from the polyethylene. That being said, the tiny plastic beads may be good for your face, but they are bad for the environment, and they could also potentially create severe health problems in the future. So, in order to keep polyethylene beads out of our environment, we as consumers must first stop buying the products that contain them.

One stakeholder group in this issue would be marine life. This is for obvious reasons. The animals who ingest these microbeads are being directly affected. The lakes, rivers, and oceans are already littered with too many plastic bottles, trash bags, and wrappers, now that we have added the polyethylene beads, it not only adds to the pollution, but makes it even worse. The beads look just like fish eggs which animals mistake for food, and the animals get full on the beads and do not want to eat any of the nutritious things that they need, which makes them not grow as big (Freinkel). The fish that eat the beads are not the only ones affected that live in the water. The larger animals that eat the contaminated fish will also be affected.

Another stakeholder group is humans. Just like the marine life, humans could be directly affected. Not only by eating the fish that are contaminated, but by the beads getting into our water sources. Testing is still being done to establish how much if any of the toxic chemicals in polyethylene that is being transferred from organism to organism to human (Schwartz). However, the same plastic is used to make water bottles, and it has been proven if you drink from a water bottle that has been sitting in a hot car, then you are drinking the toxins given off by the plastic. This is because the plastic releases the toxins when it is heated, therefore it would not be far fetched to say that the toxins are being released inside of the warm bellies of the fish.The Great Lakes is a main stakeholder group in the issue. Scientists have proven that a large amount of the microbeads have been emptied into the Great Lakes, with the most amount of the plastic residing in Lake Erie and Ontario. The beads are so tiny, that they can pass through water treatment plants. It has been estimated that there could be as much as 1.1 billion pieces of the microbeads per square mile in these lakes. This is concerning considering that 65 million pounds of fish are caught in the Great Lakes each year, which are then fed to humans (Schwartz). It is impossible to remove all of the microbeads, first because there would not be a way to find and remove every single bead that is a fraction of a millimeter in diameter from a lake that holds billions of gallons of water (Freinkel). Second, because when you drag the bottom of the lake for the beads, you will also bring up plankton that is essential for the survival of all marine animals, thus killing the lake population.

Cosmetic companies are without a doubt a stakeholder group for many reasons. One reason being that the environmentalists customers will not be very likely to buy the washes that contain the polyethylene beads, costing the companies in sales. The companies that do decide to remove the plastic beads from their products, like Johnson and Johnson, Avon, and Crest, will have to get creative a find something else to put into their face washes and toothpastes that will be just as efficient for exfoliating and cleaning, yet inexpensive (“International Campaign Against Microbeads in Cosmetics”). The whole purpose of using the microbeads in the first place is because they are cheap. If a company decides to replace the plastic beads with something else, it could potentially raise the price of the product. St. Ives uses ground walnut shells as their exfoliant, and Burt’s Bees uses biodegradable jojoba beads, which are made from a plant (Schwartz). So, it is possible to remove the beads it is just a question of what companies will find the safety of the environment important enough to change their products.

In conclusion, the microbeads propose a threat to the environment. This is a fact. There are ways to remove these polyethylene beads from all cosmetic products, but some companies are slow take action since the process of completely changing a product that is well liked is risky and more costly. Since many of the well known, well credited brands have put forth the effort, hopefully many others will follow. It is impossible to remove these plastics from our oceans and lakes, so there is only one way to solve this problem, and that is to stop giving the beads potential to reach the oceans and lakes, and it starts with us consumers. We must stop buying the products that contain the beads, which will force all cosmetic companies to remove them from their products. In return, we will have healthier fish to eat, and cleaner water to swim in on summer vacation.


Works Cited:

Pardes, Arielle. "Microbeads In Beauty Are Doing More Harm Than You Think." Into The Gloss. N.p., 11 Dec. 2015. Web. 23 Feb. 2016. <https://intothegloss.com/2015/12/microbeads-in-beauty-products/>.

Schwartz, John. "Scientists Turn Their Gaze Toward Tiny Threats to Great Lakes." The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Dec. 2013. Web. 23 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/us/scientists-turn-their-gaze-toward-tiny-threats-to-great-lakes.html?_r=0>.

Freinkel, Susan. "Microbeads and Marine Pollution: You May Be Dirtying Our Waters Every Time You Clean Your Face." Mother Jones. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2016. <http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/09/microbeads-cleanser-ocean-pollution>.

"INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST MICROBEADS IN COSMETICS." Beat the Microbead. Plastic Soup Foundation, n.d. Web. 23 Feb. 2016. <http://www.beatthemicrobead.org/en/>.

"In the Name of Beauty." Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nature.com/news/in-the-name-of-beauty-1.18398>.