We Banned Microbeads. Why Didn’t We Didn’t Get Rid of All Microplastics in Cosmetics?
By: A. Lauren Schreyer
Tags: Oceans, Skincare, Environment, Makeup, Health

In 2015, Congress passed the Microbead-Free Waters Act. This piece of legislation called for the phase-out of products containing microbeads. Microbeads are defined under this law as “any solid plastic particle that is…5 millimeters or less in size, and [i]ntended to be used to exfoliate or cleanse the body or any part of the body.” Under the law, the US was to entirely cease the manufacture and sale of all products containing microbeads by July 1, 2018.

The Microbead-Free Waters Act was passed due to public protest. The Story of Stuff Project, an activist community linked to the popular environmental documentary The Story of Stuff, spearheaded a campaign to “Ban the Bead,” enlisting over 100 other groups to support the cause. Their actions successfully led to microbead bans first in California, and then in the rest of the country. The UK passed similar legislation in 2018. Sweden went a step further, passing a ban in 2018 on all microplastic ingredients — both microbeads and other types of microplastics — in “rinse-off” products, such as toothpastes and shampoos.

These acts were a good start, but in no way were they a comprehensive ban on microplastics in cosmetic products. Go to a typical drugstore and read a few ingredient labels, and you’ll find microplastics in everything from eyeshadows to sunscreens. Microplastics appear in cosmetics in a variety of forms — Nylon-12, Polyester-8, PMMA, PTFE, and more.

The microplastics that appear in these products are much smaller than most microbeads. These ingredients are used in cosmetics as inexpensive bulking agents, to improve texture, and to encourage film-forming of cosmetics on the skin, among other uses. Microplastics are not necessary to create an effective cosmetic product, but they can help create a more cost-effective one, which makes them attractive to the cosmetics industry.

The EU has recently proposed a new microplastic ban. If passed, it would be the most comprehensive legislation on this topic to date. This ban would affect not just all cosmetic microplastics, but would also extend to other industries such as fertilizer and paints.

Predictably, the cosmetics industry has pushed back. It is clear that a ban on microplastics could hurt their bottom line. Cosmetics lobbyists predict a €12 billion loss in Europe alone due to the cost of reformulating or pulling products. The Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association of the UK indicates that 90% of products may need to be reformulated. It is true that a ban on microplastics will cause setbacks for the cosmetics industry. However, lobbyists have also resorted to making the dubious claim that “there isn’t scientific evidence that the microplastics used in cosmetics are a source of marine pollution.”

It should be common sense to anyone that microplastics used in cosmetics are causing marine pollution. Cosmetic products either wear off throughout the day, or end up down the drain at the end of the day when they are washed off. Therefore, it is inevitable that nearly all of the product will end up in the environment. Due to how tiny these particles are, they likely cannot be filtered out by wastewater treatment facilities. Even microplastic fibers from synthetic clothing cannot be filtered out entirely by modern waste treatment processes, and those fibers are generally larger in size than the particles used in cosmetics.

Additionally, the tiny-sized microplastics in cosmetics are among the most likely to end up in our bodies — not just indirectly through the soil and water, but also directly, from ingestion. For example, some lipsticks contain ingredients such as Nylon-12, and most lipstick that is applied ends up ingested by the wearer.

Research is just starting to come out on the effects of microplastic ingestion on human health, although research is currently limited on the types of plastics typically used in cosmetics. Some research indicates that leachates from some microplastics can act as hormone disruptors. According to a 2018 meta-analysis, small enough microplastics can “translocate across living cells…to the lymphatic and/or circulatory system, accumulate in secondary organs, and impact the immune system and cell health…ingested microplastics may cause inflammation in tissue, cellular proliferation, and necrosis and may compromise immune cells.” Nanoplastics also have been shown to cause “toxicity in vitro to lung cells, liver, and brain cells.”

Tiny microplastics can also be harmful to wildlife. A recent Swedish study indicated that “nanoplastics enter the brains of fish through the food chain and cause aberrant behaviour.” Another study indicated plastic leachates “impair growth and oxygen production in…the ocean’s most abundant photosynthetic bacteria” as well as altering their gene expression. Yet another study indicated that certain plastic leachates can even kill ocean crustaceans in high enough concentrations. These are just a few illustrative examples of what harm environmental micro- and nanoplastics may cause. These examples obviously have wider implications for our own health and the continued future sustainability of the ecosystem.

While it is true that cosmetics are likely not a major source of ocean microplastic pollution — that dubious honor, according to studies, goes to car tires, synthetic clothing, and broken-down fishing nets — they are still contributing to the dispersal of small and impossible to clean up plastic particles into our environment.

Another reason why we should prioritize a cosmetic microplastic ban is because this is probably one of the easiest sources of microplastic pollution to tackle. Most cosmetic products are luxuries, and unlike with many sources of environmental pollution, are fairly non-essential to modern life. Personal care products also have a high turnover rate since they expire, making it fairly easy to phase ingredients out in a short period of time. It’s a lot easier to switch to a different lipstick formula than to reformulate all car tires to be plastic-free, or to replace one’s entire wardrobe with natural fabrics.

Also, we already know how to make good cosmetics that do not contain microplastics. Dozens of “green beauty” brands exist with such products, and quite a few of them are at drugstore-comparable price points even without the economies of scale the major beauty brands have. In fact, many of the same brands that create products with microplastics also sell alternatives without.

Unfortunately, however, the main impediment to a ban on cosmetic microplastics seems to be lack of public awareness. There was a lot of public pressure to ban microbeads. But once that ban was passed, it seems like Americans largely forgot about the issue. I emailed the Story of Stuff Project to ask if they had any insight on why this might have happened — why the momentum built by the microbead ban was not rolled into a larger effort to wholly ban microplastics in unnecessary applications. My email was forwarded to an activist who worked extensively on the Ban the Bead project, but I never received a further response.

The simplest explanation may be the correct one in this case. Microbeads were a highly visible form of pollution, while other microplastics are not. The products targeted by the ban — scrubs and other rinse-off products with microbeads — were clearly interspersed with small, round bits of plastic. Other microplastics, meanwhile, are not visible to the naked eye. You have to read the ingredients label — and understand how to parse an ingredients label — to even know they are there. One marketing study indicated 81% of consumers “do not recognize ingredients on the label of personal care products at least somewhat often.”

Also, “rinse-off” products such as scrubs and toothpastes may have specifically been targeted for a microplastics ban because they are immediately washed down the drain when applied. The consumer can actually see the microplastics going down the drain. In contrast, when a consumer applies a lipstick or a sunscreen, they may not necessarily make the connection to the fact that this product is also going to end up in the environment — either by wearing off throughout the day, or being washed down the drain at the end of the day.

The proposed EU ban gives some hope that there may be a second wave of renewed interest in preventing microplastic pollution from cosmetics. Environmental advocacy groups concerned about the issue of plastic pollution should take the time to educate the public about sources of microplastics that are not visible to the naked eye, including from personal care products.