Body scrubs maybe good for your skin, but not for mother earth. Microbeads, which are present to almost all beauty products, are to blame. Dilyana Mihaylova of conservation organisation Fauna & Flora International stated, 'Microbeads are too small to be filtered out during sewage treatment and invariably flow out to sea, becoming a direct source of pollution. This is a problem because they don't biodegrade and can pose a serious threat to animals, which can easily mistake them for food."
The director of campaigns for pressure group The Story of Stuff Project, Stiv Wilson, described how microbeads are posing threat to wildlife, especially to those whose habitat is the water. Wilson stated, 'The smaller something is, the more animals can eat it. These are tiny and are being released into the water table in their trillions.' All bodies of water such as lakes, rivers, coral reefs and sea beds are now being filled with large amounts of microbeads that can be consumed by marine creatures such as fish, seabirds and other mammals.
But the threat that microbeads constitute is extended to humans as well. Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection announced that people who eat shellfish and other forms of sea creatures could be consuming more than 10,000 microbeads every year.
'We are concerned how these toxins travel up the food chain. One big fish will eat 10,000 little fish, and then a human eats the big fish. There's potential for lots of toxins to be contained within that,' says Wilson.
The impact of microbeads in human bodies might still be uncertain but a research study indicated that the toxin coming from microplastics could have harmful effects in human's body tissues. This could also mean that one might end up eating the toxic particles used to clean her face and other parts of the body.
