Don't eat the (plastic) fish.
Posted: 03 Sep 2016, 14:41Following evidence that microplastics used in cosmetics and cleaning products are killing fish and getting into the human food chain the UK is to go it alone in banning them.
Good for us!
The plastic beads are gobbled up by plankton, which are in turn gobbled up by larger creatures, and so it goes on up the food chain - to us. A voluntary ban was to come into force in 2020, but the government has decided to make it law. It has taken some time, but at least we got there. What puzzles me is how these things came to be licensed in the first place. For decades we had been using scrubs and scouring powders and creams using ground nut shells, Fuller's earth or talc, all of which occur naturally and are inert. How and why it was thought a good idea to replace them with microscopic plastic beads, known to last for hundreds of years in the environment before decomposing, beats me.
Good for us!
The plastic beads are gobbled up by plankton, which are in turn gobbled up by larger creatures, and so it goes on up the food chain - to us. A voluntary ban was to come into force in 2020, but the government has decided to make it law. It has taken some time, but at least we got there. What puzzles me is how these things came to be licensed in the first place. For decades we had been using scrubs and scouring powders and creams using ground nut shells, Fuller's earth or talc, all of which occur naturally and are inert. How and why it was thought a good idea to replace them with microscopic plastic beads, known to last for hundreds of years in the environment before decomposing, beats me.