Starting July 1, 2017, manufacturers will no longer be allowed to include plastic microbeads in personal care and cosmetic products.
The House and Senate passed legislation establishing the ban earlier this month, and President Barack Obama signed the final bill yesterday. Previously, several states banned microbeads and major retail chains such as Wegmans announced plans to stop selling products containing them. Environmental groups consider the legislation a major win.
The plastic beads are so tiny that waste water treatment plants aren’t able to filter them out of treated water. And once the beads are in aquatic environments, some marine organisms mistake them for food. The plastic beads tend to carry or absorb toxic chemicals that persist in the waterways, and ultimately they carry those chemicals into the bodies of fish and birds.
Significant levels of microbeads have been found in all of the Great Lakes, with Lake Ontario having the highest recorded concentrations.
This article appears in Dec 23-29, 2015.
The new Federal microbead ban law is modest start on cleaning up our Great Lakes’ waters, but our water quality issues are much more complicated than microbead pollution.
Climate Change is bringing fresh water acidification, changing the entire Great Lakes ecosystem via fauna and flora warming issues, pollution from more sewage overflows from more heavy rainfall, and past toxic pollution. Not to mention critical invasive species issues like the Asian Carp.
We’ve only just begun.
More on Water Quality in our area: http://rochesterenvironment.com/water_qual…