President Obama has recently approved a bill banning the use of microbeads in all products.
Microbeads are the tiny plastic particles commonly found in toothpaste and body washes. The small particles are almost impossible to dissolve and according to Business Insider, they enter our water systems in their billions.
They are so harmful that a recent study discovered Lake Erie to contain as many as 1.7million microbeads per square kilometer.
The beads are too small to be filtered by water systems and are often the cause of digestion problems and fatalities for small aquatic creatures, including turtles.
“Microbeads are highly damaging to the natural environment and the wildlife that live there,” the Wildlife Conservation Society said in a press release. “Because natural alternatives already exist, a ban on their use in personal care products makes perfect sense.”
Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, and Procter & Gamble have all pledged to source alternative ingredients in their products, phasing out the inclusion of the microbead.
The new law will enforce those pledges by requiring companies to phase out the environmentally harmful beads starting July 1, 2017.
