Some people might see their favorite beauty products disappear from shelves in 2017.
A law signed by President Obama in December will prohibit companies from selling products that include microbeads used to exfoliate or cleanse, including toothpaste.
Microbeads are synthetic pieces of plastic smaller than 5 millimeters, according to the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015.
Christopher Cuevas, a 19-year-old UF environmental engineering sophomore, said the beads are rinsed off into the sewer system where they pass through filters and run into the waterways.
“We are reliant on our water supply for tourism and fishing,” Cuevas said.
Eight trillion microbeads go into the environment daily, according to a study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Maia McGuire, a UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences extension agent, runs a project that measures plastic pollution in Florida waters.
She said volunteers collect water samples in coastal areas, but the beads’ effects on health and the environment are unknown.
“We don’t have a lot of studies looking at the environmental effect of this,” she said.
McGuire also said the one-page bill is too broad and leaves loopholes for companies to exploit.
However, in the last three years, companies Unilever and Target have already stopped incorporating microbeads into their products, McGuire said.
“I think it is a good start,” she said.
Contact Meryl Cornfield at mkornfield@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter @merylkornfield
