In the past few 20 years, many health and beauty companies have begun utilizing “microbeads” as exfoliates in cleansing products. This is economical for the corporations but creates a large problem when these particles are rinsed off your body and into the wastewater stream. Many of these particles are too small to be filtered out in wastewater treatment screens. So, the final destination for these plastic microbeads is often our oceans.

In order to prevent the greater accumulation of tiny plastic particles in the oceans and our seafood, it is important to read labels carefully when picking a new cleanser. It is pretty easy to miss microplastics as components in our cleansers, but if you see polyethylene as an ingredient, it is likely that the product contains them. Some well-known products that contain polyethylene include: Olay Regenerist 14 Day Skin Intervention, Olay Completely Ageless Rejuvenating Lathering Cleanser, Neutrogena Body Clean Body Scrub and Aveeno Skin Brightening Daily Scrub. There are many more products that contain microbeads (polyethylene) so it is important to always read the label.

Plastics pollution is already a huge problem in the world’s oceans. Large plastics break down into small plastic pieces known as “microplastics” and exfoliating microbeads are only magnifying the problem. Polyethylene, a plastic most commonly made from oil, is chemically attracted to many of the contaminants that are already in our oceans – such as PCBs. Pelagic invertebrates then consume these tiny particles and small fish and then the chemicals move up the food chain in a process known as bio-accumulation.

To learn more about this issue, I interviewed Dr. Mary A. Sewell from the University of Auckland, one of several scientists that study plastics in the oceans. I have shared her responses below in italics.

1.  What are microplastics?

Microplastics are pieces of plastic that are less than 5 mm in size; the plastics >5mm are called macroplastics.  Large pieces of plastic over time will degrade – through erosion, breakdown due to exposure to ultraviolet light – so that pieces of macroplastic such as plastic bottles, buckets, fishing gear etc eventually get smaller and smaller and thus become microplastics.  The problem with plastics in facial cleansers is that they are already very tiny pieces of microplastic.

2.  When were these plastics first used in commercial products?

The first record that I am aware of in the scientific literature is in 1991.  Another publication by Gregory in 1996 highlighted that these were being used in exfoliates, and as you can see in our paper they are now in nearly all facial cleansers.

3.  How does bio-accumulation work?

The problem with the facial cleansers is that the microplastics are so small that very small members of the plankton such as copepods and marine invertebrate larvae can eat them.  If they eat them, and other larger members of the plankton eat them, this plastic can then travel up the food chain. I.E. Copepods get eaten by small fish, small fish get eaten by large fish, and humans eat large fish.  As outlined in our paper, the potential problem is that polyethylene is very well known for soaking up toxins, so these toxins might end up in the food that we eat like shellfish, white fish, and tuna.

9.  How are scientists researching these issues?

The paper that we published last year was meant to highlight to scientists that this was about to become a huge problem.  Interestingly this issue was included as one of the issues for 2010 in an article that was recently published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.  Scientists around the world are starting to use some sophisticated techniques, (see for example Ng and Obbard) to detect the prevalence of these, and Moore has also shown that it can travel up the food chain.

4. What is the scale of the impact of microplastics?

It is difficult to gauge the scale of the impact of microplastics – but a back of the envelope calculation suggests that it could be really huge.  Nearly every cleanser has plastic and most households, especially those with teenagers, will have these products (many of these products are special acne washes).  Do a quick survey among your friends or co-workers of whose bathrooms have products containing polyethylene and you will be amazed. In large cities, with lots of people using these products, and with most treatment plants not designed to capture very small, floating waste, a lot of this is probably getting into the ocean.  The small size of this makes it very difficult to study as finding these microplastics are very difficult.

7.  Microplastics aren’t listed on the labels of products. What ingredients should consumers look for?

This is usually polyethylene, though the earlier studies mentioned polystyrene.  The facial cleanser products in the supermarkets in New Zealand, which are available worldwide, all had polyethylene listed on the ingredients list.

5.  What can consumers do to help?

The most important thing they can do is read the label on these products and if polyethylene is listed as an ingredient make a choice not to buy this product as this is the microplastic most commonly found.  Choose a product that has a natural scrubbing agent – oatmeal or walnut husks etc – or just use a flannel or scrub gloves that will do the same thing.  Consumers can also educate others about this issue.

At Izzit, we do our best to bring you health and beauty products that cause little to no harm to the environment, and we strive to stay away from harmful ingredients like polyethylene. Through research and product sampling, we’ve tried to gather the least harmful products the market has to offer – taking into account possible harm to you and the environment. Check out our health and beauty section, comment and review products, but more importantly, help us raise awareness about harmful ingredients and the products that contain them. Your feedback and buying patterns are what feed change.