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Did you know that the majority of plastic that is floating around in the world’s oceans is too small to even see? There are trillions of tiny bits of plastic, known as microplastics, swirling around in most the world’s waterways, but despite their small size, these plastics are having a major negative environmental impact.
As this video explains, microplastics are found in personal care products like face wash and toothpaste – products most of us use every day! Despite the fact that a single tube of face wash can contain 300,000 plastic microbeads, many people do not even know that they exist!
When these tiny plastic spheres get washed down the drain, they wind up in local watersheds because water treatment plants because they are too small to filter out. Once they get into waterways, these tiny beads act like sponges, picking up any and every environmental toxin in sight … and this is hardly where their reign of terror ends.
Like humans, fish and other marine animals can’t see microbeads floating in the water and accidentally ingest them. This means they’re not only eating the plastic, but all the toxic chemicals the plastic’s absorbed as well … all of which get passed along when humans then eat that fish – yuck!
As consumers, we can help put an end to this vicious cycle by cutting microplastics out of our daily routines – but what we really need is for companies to stop producing microbeads as well! If you think it is time to ban the microbead, sign this petition.
To learn more about how you can cut plastic out of your life, check out this article.