Microbead Phaseout Applauded by Clean Water Advocates

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Clean Ocean Action Executive Director Cindy Zipf, right, and Marine Science Education Coordinator Catie Tobin, are studying the effect of microplastics on the Jersey Shore. Their report will be completed later this year. Photo: Joseph Sapia
Clean Ocean Action Executive Director Cindy Zipf, right, and Marine Science Education Coordinator Catie Tobin, are studying the effect of microplastics on the Jersey Shore. Their report will be completed later this year. Photo: Joseph Sapia

Story and photo by Joseph Sapia
Plastic is a helpful part of our everyday life, but it’s also negatively pervasive, with containers and wrapping material littering roads, finding its way to waterways.
As Sandra Meola of Keyport-based NY-NJ Baykeeper puts it, “It’s pollution.”
Now, according to local environmental watchdogs, new federal legislation will make an important dent – albeit a partial dent – in controlling plastic waste in the marine environment.
President Barack Obama signed into law the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 on Dec. 28. The law bans the manufacture and sale of plastic microbeads, little balls less than 5 millimeters in diameter used for cleansing or exfoliating, in healthcare products such as skin cleansers and toothpaste and in cosmetics.
“The President’s signature on this legislation is a major victory for U.S. waterways and the environment,” said Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6), co-sponsor of the bill. “Without the ban, an estimated 8 trillion plastic microbeads pollute U.S. waterways each day, threatening the environment and, ultimately, our health.”
“You can walk on any beach and find microplastics,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of the Clean Ocean Action environmental advocacy group based on Sandy Hook.
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Clean Ocean Action Executive Director Cindy Zipf shows how easy it is to find microplastics on the beach. Microbeads are smaller than these samples, and are too small to pick up. Photo: Joseph Sapia

Plastic does not biodegrade; is consumed by marine life, possibly working its way up the food chain to humans; and has an adherent quality, allowing toxins to attach to it, Meola said.
“Plastics act as magnets (for) PCBs, petroleum products,” Zipf said.
Pallone said he was inspired to create the legislation because, “I’ve always been concerned about plastics in the environment. I’ve always targeted plastics because of their impact (on waters).”
Microbeads are particularly bad, according to Pallone, because they bypass water-treatment and drainage equipment.
“They’re too small to be picked up,” he said, adding “huge amounts are getting” in water “all over the country.”
“It isn’t a perfect bill, but a step in the right direction,” Zipf said. “It might not capture 100 percent of the microbead sources. This is the beginning, first step.”
Under the Microbead-Free Waters Act, the manufacture of microbeads in cosmetics will be banned as of July 1, 2017, followed by a selling ban July 1, 2018, Pallone said. Then, on July 1, 2018, the manufacturing is banned in healthcare products, followed by their selling ban July 1, 2019, Pallone said.
“We understand it takes time for the personal care industry to reformulate the products,” Meola said.
The federal law supersedes state laws, according to Meola. New Jersey’s law banned the manufacture of microbeads in January 2018 and the sale of products in January 2020, he said.
Not only will the federal law add protection in states without laws, it will create uniformity – meaning the personal products industry will not have to direct products or not direct products to specific states.
Pallone held a Jan. 5 press conference at the New Brunswick headquarters of Johnson & Johnson, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of healthcare products. In 2013, J&J announced it would phase out the manufacture of microbead products by the end of 2017.
“We have stopped developing new products containing polyethylene microbeads and have been conducting environmental safety assessments of other alternatives,” according to a J&J statement. “In fact, we have already reformulated some products which now contain jojoba (plant) wax exfoliates.
“Our environmental safety assessments are part of our ‘informed substitution’ approach, which helps ensure that the alternatives we choose are safe and environmentally sound and that they provide consumers with a great experience. We met our goal to complete the first phase of reformulations by the end of 2015, which represents about half our products sold that contain microbeads.”
“We had a lot of industry support,” Pallone said.
The personal products industry, according to Pallone, has alternatives to microbeads – such as apricot pits and nuts – and it did not want to face varying laws in different states.
While Pallone is the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republican Fred Upton of Michigan is the committee chair and Pallone’s co-sponsor.
CUT FOR SPACE Not surprising Upton, representing the Great Lake State, which borders on four of the five Great Lakes, would be a sponsor. The Great Lakes, the world’s largest source of freshwater, have produced extensive evidence of a microbeads problem.
A recent study showed 1.7 million microbeads in a square kilometer of Lake Erie, according to Yahoo Finance.
“The data coming out of the Great Lakes is just frightening,” Zipf said. “And they drink that water. It’s in the drinking water. It’s in the fish. And it’s in the fish in the Pacific. It’s just insidious.”
Pallone, who has long supported a pro-marine environment, and Upton, a Great Lakes area representative, got together on the bill.
“The federal bill is consistent nationwide,” Meola said. “It’s a national issue.”
“They’d rather have one federal law,” Pallone said. “And we had bipartisan support.”
From March to August, Baykeeper researched evidence of microbeads in the New Jersey-New York Harbor Estuary, Meola said. She said the Baykeeper is now putting together a report.
Clean Ocean Action is working on its own study, looking at microplastics in Atlantic Ocean water and beach sand along the New Jersey coast, Zipf said. COA is looking to finish the study later this year, Zipf said.
“The preliminary results are very alarming,” Zipf said.
With the microbeads law in place, focus can be placed on other plastics in the environment, such as plastic foam products and containers, Meola said.
“This is the proverbial tip of the iceberg of what we have to do to address plastics in the marine environment,” Zipf said.
“Plastics are still in products, but the bill makes sure they’re not in exfoliating products,” Meola said.
“A washcloth works pretty well (as an exfoliant) – I’m just saying,” Zipf joked.