The UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has published a research briefing that highlights a number of statistics that underscore the importance of outlawing the use of microbeads in personal care and cosmetics products.
According the research findings, as much as 86 tonnes of the tiny plastic microbeads are washed up into the waterways and marine environment in the UK each year.
Microbeads are non-biodgradable
Those microbeads are included in a wide number of cosmetic and personal are products, including toothpastes, soaps and some colour cosmetics, but in recent years there has been a huge increase in their use for body and facial care scrubs.
The problem is that these microbeads are more often than not made from non-biodegradable plastic beads, and there is an increasing body of evidence to suggest that the microbeads are being consumed by marine life.
Indeed, the UK parliamentary research paper points out that more than a third of fish in the English channels showed evidence of the plastic microbeads in their digestive systems.
The report also pointed out that they have been found inhave also been found in mussels, tiny organisms known as zooplankton, oysters, seals and whales.
Speaking in conjunction with the publication of the paper, Mary Creagh, chairwoman of the Environmental Audit Committee, said that if cosmetics and personal care companies did not undertake a voluntary ban to phase out the ban, the alternative would be a ban implemented by the body.
Raising awareness of environmental damage
"This paper raises important questions about the damage microplastics could be doing to our marine environment,” Creagh said.
"We know shellfish and fish are ingesting plastic fragments, what we don't know is the effect this is having on them and on human health.”
Last month Denmark added to pressure on the European Parliament to take decisive action on banning the use of cosmetics and personal care products that contain microbeads in the EU.
Scandinavia is also putting the pressure on
Ebsen Lunde Larsen, the country’s minister for the environment, says he will take his concerns about the use of the microbeads to the European Commission, where he will be putting pressure on to ban the substance, according to reports in Danish media.
Although Denmark is one of the smaller 28 member states in the European Union, it has often led the way on environmental matters, and the current liberal-right government wants to be seen as maintaining this reputation.
Likewise, in January of this year, the Swedish Chemicals Agency Kemi proposed to ban rinse-off cosmetic products that contain plastic microbeads in Sweden, saying it should be subject of EU-wide regulation, in a new government-mandated report.
As part of the assignment, Kemi suggests the ban should apply as of 1 January 2018, and that Sweden should continue to seek to achieve an EU-wide regulation.