7
May
The increasing concern over marine litter and the presence of these debris in a wide range of marine organisms – thus entering food chains – has brought the attention towards the problem of microplastics and on their presence in daily products such as cosmetics, detergents and personal care products (1).
Microplastics are small particles of different typologies of plastic materials (thermoplastics, sylicones...), and they are thought to be the most abundant plastic item currently found in our seas. Unfortunately, due to the normal degradation process of plastic over time (it takes centuries!), the amount of particles in the environment will unavoidably increase (2). The term microplastics usually indicates plastic fragments and debris smaller than 5 mm (2), that originates from land-based like residual wastewater effluents from sewage treatment plants - not always effective in filtering microplastics (3) and polymer fibres from clothes and aquatic-based sources - for example from the decomposition of plastic waste in the oceans (4). Studies proved that when exposure to sufficiently high doses of microplastics occurs, particle toxicity in several biological systems can occurr – affecting the whole cycle, from marine invertebrates to mammalians (1). The concern around the harms of microplastics derives from their small size, that makes it accessible for ingestion for organisms as small as plankton (at the base of the food chain) (2).
In the last years, strong attention and concern developed around cosmetics, pharmaceutical and personal care products as pollutants due to their constant release in the water associated to the large quantities of these typologies of products used every day at a global scale (3). An example on the change of scale of this problem, it is interesting to reflect on how in the 1990s only a small percentage of microplastic pollution was caused by liquid hand cleansers, while 20 years later (2009) the average induvidual is using on a daily basis products - such as facial cleansers - containing microplastics (5). The cosmetic and personal care industry uses plastic ingredients to achieve the desired texture or properties (stabilization, film formation, viscosity regulation) in products like shower gels, sunscreen, makeup and toothpaste. The particles used in personal care products are extremely small - often invisible to the naked eye, and they are non degradable, non soluble in water and impossible to recycle due to their small size and their direct disposal into wastewater at the end of their life cycle (1).
Cosmetics constitute a huge ecological problem as they are used in large quantities along the whole course of a person´s life, and they are introduced unaltered into the environment by simple daily gestures like showering, washing our face or rinsing our hands (3). The so called „rinse-off“ products enter directly the household wastewater streams and the microplastics are often retained in sewage sludge or discharged directly into the sea by the effluents of wastewater treatment (1). Many European countries have started to take action against this problem by assessing its impacts and by planning contrasting measures in order to reduce pollution trough plastic ingredients in personal care products (6).Source:
