Mad about Science: Microplastics

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

Publisher’s note: Brenden Bobby is off this week, so publisher Ben Olson is filling in for him.

Anyone with access to an internet connection the past decade will have undoubtedly stumbled upon the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean measuring about 620,000 square miles. The patch is located within a convergence zone about 100 miles north of the Hawaiian Islands, where warm water from the South Pacific meets up with colder water from the Arctic. The result is that this gyre — or rotating ocean current — collects an astounding amount of marine debris, most of which is plastic, which comes from land-based sources.

But the real danger in our oceans is not the plastic we can see, but microparticles measuring fewer than five millimeters, or about the size of a sesame seed.

These microplastics come from a variety of sources, including from larger plastic debris that degrades into smaller and smaller pieces. A particular category of microplastics called microbeads are very tiny pieces of manufactured polyethylene plastic that are added as exfoliants to health and beauty products like soap, facial scrubs, cleansers and toothpastes. They may also be added to over-the-counter drugs to make them easier to swallow. The round nature of these plastic beads help create a ball-bearing effect in creams and lotions, which can result in a silkier texture. Finally, colored microspheres add visual appeal to some cosmetic products.

These microbeads are so small that they often pass through water filtration systems and end up in oceans and other bodies of water, posing a threat to aquatic life.

Microbeads first appeared in personal care products in the 1970s, with plastics increasingly replacing natural ingredients in the following years. Despite more than 50 years of use, the long-term effects of microbeads on the oceans — and the human body — are still relatively unknown.

One study suggested that the beads can absorb and concentrate pollutants like pesticides and polycyclic hydrocarbons. One reason why such high levels of pollution have been found in Lake Erie is the concentration of microbeads released into the Great Lakes from land-based water treatment plants serving large cities like Chicago, Cincinnati and others.

One main reason microbead plastics have detrimental effects to fish and animal populations is because insect larvae, small fish, amphibians, turtles, birds and some larger mammals mistake microbeads for their food source and ingest the plastics — harming not only their own bodies, but spreading toxicity those animals higher on the food chain.

Starting in the 2010s, the world began taking greater notice of microbeads and microplastics, with an app called Beat the Microbead developed by the North Sea Foundation, which allowed Dutch consumers to check whether their personal care products contain microbeads. The app became more successful amid growing concern around the world, and it is now available in seven different languages.

One benefit of the app is introducing natural and biodegradable alternatives to microbeads, which have no environmental impact when washed down the drain, as they will decompose or be filtered out before releasing into the ocean. These alternatives include using natural exfoliants like ground almonds, oatmeal, sea salt and coconut husks. For example, Burt’s Bees and St. Ives both use apricot pits and cocoa husks instead of microbeads in their products.

Since 2012, many cosmetic companies have pledged to reduce and/or eliminate microbeads from their production lines, including L’Oreal, Johnson and Johnson, and Crest.

Former-President Barack Obama signed the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, which prohibited the manufacture and introduction of microbeads into interstate commerce by July 1, 2017. South Korea passed a similar act the same day, and other nations around the world followed suit, passing their own laws banning the use of microbeads.

While microbeads have been effectively banned in at least 13 countries around the world, there are still few laws affecting the use of microplastics, so they remain ubiquitous. 

Author Matt Simon listed several contaminating sources of microplastics in his book, A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies. Simon claims that one may inhale up to 7,000 microplastics each day. One major source is to-go coffee cups, which release tens of thousands of microplastics and millions of nanoplastics into hot water (or tea, coffee or other heated liquids) in just 15 minutes, which are then ingested while sipping the beverage.

Simon also pointed out that microplastics and nanoplastics — microplastics after they’ve broken down even further into tinier particles — can move through our organs, including our brain, and can enter our cells. Microplastics have been found in placentas, breast milk, and the blood of humans and other animals.

Even raindrops contain plastic waste, Simon wrote, which has wide-ranging ramifications for planetary health.

While microplastics are everywhere, the best ways to avoid ingesting them are to choose natural materials, ditch plastic bottled water, filter your tap water, use a filter in your washing machine to catch microplastics from going to the water treatment plant, eat more fresh foods rather those packaged in plastic, use a wood cutting board in the kitchen, check your products for microplastic usage online and, finally, try the plastic-free challenge to see how long you can go without using plastic.

Stay curious, 7B. Brenden Bobby will be back next week.