
US to ban soaps and other products containing microbeads - benologist
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/08/us-to-ban-soaps-other-products-containing-microbeads
======
SwellJoe
While it's cool and all that this has been done, it's many years after
credible people started warning about the dangers of these products. The fact
that manufacturers kept making this stuff with knowledge of the damage it was
causing is pretty damning, and is the kind of thing that makes me mistrustful
of arguments that the free market will sort things like this out. There's just
no good mechanism to stop massive harm to common resources (even now, we don't
have a good mechanism to stop this kind of thing, since it took years to do
so, even for something as uncontroversial as this...our system barely even
puts a dent in the ecological harm of fossil fuels, animal agriculture, etc.).

~~~
betteringred
> mistrustful of arguments that the free market will sort things like this
> out. There's just no good mechanism to stop massive harm to common resources

Most arguments that the free market can handle these problems start out with
the recommendation that the resources involved (rivers, lakes, ocean) should
be privatized. Economist Walter Block and others have written about ways this
could be done. To fault free market arguments for not working when the
waterways aren't privatized is to misrepresent the arguments. Most people
aren't arguing that the free market is going to solve problems relating to
unowned, unownable, or government owned property without first recognizing
private property rights in those resources.

Governments often protects polluters by limiting their liability. If that were
changed, and assuming these resources (bodies of water) were privatized so
non-governmental parties had standing to sue, if you have an argument why a
class action lawsuit or something like that can't handle these problems, then
that would be an interesting comment. But just saying the free market doesn't
solve problems where there are no property rights is rather uninteresting,
because free marketers agree with that.

Also it's pretty amusing that a failure of government (who owns the waterways,
and most of the sewer systems) to solve this problem sooner somehow gets
twisted into a failure of the free market (who doesn't own these resources).
Without property rights there's no free market.

I agree that governments, who subsidize animal feed, water, land, and waste,
and prosecute activists, do a great deal of harm to the environment by
promoting and protecting animal exploitation. I'm fine with banning animal
exploitation, even on private property, and I see that as no more anti-free
market than banning slavery on private property.

~~~
logophobia
Yes, because a private entity completely owning natural resources like lakes
and forests, will completely prevent those resources from being ruthlessly
exploited. Those private entities would rationally take a long term vision,
and certainly wouldn't exploit those resources until there's nothing left.

There's certainly merit in trying to make people pay for externalities
(offsetting carbon pollution for example), but you can't do that for
everything. Privatizing everything might be an appealing free-market pipe
dream, but unless we can completely/mostly stop externalities from happening,
such an experiment would be a disaster.

~~~
Spooky23
I don't see any evidence of that.

You can't take your wealth with you upon death -- Property owners of valuable
resources nearly always maximize exploitation in the short term and could give
a shit about the long term.

If they took a long term view, we'd still have old growth forest in the US.

~~~
0_00_0
I think that was his point as well.

------
bhartzer
I am happy that small, but fairly substantive (and meaningful) policies like
this still manage to get through Congress. And that not everything becomes
like that "feds are confiscating our light bulbs" fight because of posturing
or corruption.

This is a good regulation/law, and it's actually going to be passed. Glad it
still happens sometimes.

~~~
ksenzee
Not all the opposition to the light bulbs regulation was corruption and
posturing. Some of it was quite reasonable objections from consumers along the
lines of "hey, I buy that product, and there's no good substitute at a
reasonable price point." I doubt consumers really care that much about
microbeads, which makes them a lot easier to ban.

~~~
cballard
Yeah, CFL bulbs are icky blue flickering garbage, and the LED bulbs I've used
(Hue), while otherwise fine, don't support my dimmer correctly. Using the Hue
app isn't as easy as walking over to the light switch, and they won't work
anyways, unless I rip out the dimmer - I ended up putting the Hue bulbs in the
bathroom, which is at least fun for a joke.

Incandescent bulbs are just a better experience for me right now. I don't
think there are any such advantages for microbeads.

~~~
dbloom
There are LED bulbs on the market that have great compatibility with all
dimmers. I hope that market forces eventually weed out all of the less
compatible LED bulbs. At that point, LED bulbs should be truly interchangeable
with incandescents for lighting (heat generation, not so much).

~~~
rconti
True, but it depends. I bought a bunch (16?) of top-end Soraa MR16 bulbs at
about $30 apiece to replace the halogens in my new house. This is not
something everyone can easily afford.

Of course, it turns out that even though they have great dimmer compatibility,
they're not 100% compatible with my magnetic dimmers. I have to trim them to
80% of peak; if I try to run them over 80%, the transformer resets and the
bulb turns off. Sometimes they strobe for a few seconds when they're running
at max brightness, I haven't solved that issue yet.

So unless I want to replace every transformer at ~$60 a pop or more (plus
labor costs if not doing it yourself), plus likely a bunch of switches.. It's
either $100 _per bulb_ to go LED, or suffer with not-quite-perfect
replacements.

~~~
simcop2387
Can't say I've had any experience with magnetic dimmers, but the cheaper
dimmer compatible LEDs seem work fine on Triac dimmers.

~~~
rconti
I think often the answer is "you won't know until you try it". Forward-phase,
reverse-phase, symmetrical... Low voltage in particular makes things more
complicated.

[http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/print/volume-9/issue-6/...](http://www.ledsmagazine.com/articles/print/volume-9/issue-6/features/understand-
triac-dimmer-issues-to-ensure-compatibility-magazine.html)
[http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Education-
Training/Pages/LCE/Dim...](http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Education-
Training/Pages/LCE/DimmingBasics.aspx)

~~~
nitrogen
Why can't the LED controller circuits come with a calibration feature that
detects (with user help) the minimum level the dimmer will support, and makes
that the all-black point?

~~~
simcop2387
Partly because the usual minimum level the dimmer will support is off. That is
the all black point :)

I know what you mean though. It'd be nice if there was some way to adjust them
to change the brightness curve to match what you'd expect. It's one reason I'm
considering something like the Phillips Hue bulbs instead of dimmers in the
future despite the cost difference.

------
krschultz
This was an obviously bad idea from the start.

One of the tenants of a reasonably modern mechanical engineering curriculum is
at least passing coverage of 'product lifecycle', which basically means
thinking about disposal/recycling during design. What did the CPG companies
think was going to happen when they dumped a billion tiny little pieces of
plastic directly down the drain?

~~~
mhurron
> What did the CPG companies think was going to happen when they dumped a
> billion tiny little pieces of plastic directly down the drain?

They clearly thought it wasn't their problem.

~~~
Zikes
As much debate as I've heard recently over what qualifies a person as an
"engineer", one of the key features has always been a very strict adherence to
a code of ethics.

I'm starting to wonder if the title is even worth arguing over anymore.

~~~
pjc50
In a highly competitive job market, it's hard to have ethics that result in
your unemployment. And any actual "whistleblowing" that costs businesses money
can be career-destroying, life-ruining, or (in the case of Snowden) force you
to flee the country.

Look at how nobody's broken _omerta_ on what actually happened in VW.

------
merpnderp
Forget about these beads winding up in streams and our ecosystem, which is bad
enough. Dentists warn that toothpastes with these beads can embed them in your
gums leading to infections and tooth decay.

No idea how this became legal. Our regulatory body should be a whole lot more
about transparency, so questionable stuff like this can be easily weighed by
the consumer.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-
health/wp/2014/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-
health/wp/2014/09/18/why-dentists-are-speaking-out-about-the-plastic-beads-in-
your-toothpaste/)

~~~
relaytheurgency
Because things are made illegal, not the other way around.

~~~
Retric
Depends, medical drugs are default illegal.

Though the crap that is ok to put in the food supply is ridiculous.
[http://sagewater.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Renew-
Downlo...](http://sagewater.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Renew-
Download-9115.pdf)

------
kileywm
I've used some of the products containing microbeads and was flabbergasted
when I learned that they were plastic. It was my dentist who asked a pointed
question during a routine cleaning:

"Do you use Crest toothpaste?"

I answered yes and was informed that some of the plastic beads from the tooth
paste had gotten stuck in my gums. The dentist went on to explain that she'd
sent in many complaints to the company but they still didn't drop that
ingredient.

What weighs on my mind now is why a toothpaste company continued to use
microbeads after learning of the externality. Did they have too much inventory
to sell. Were they afraid that discontinuing that exact product would upset
customers? Did they think that owning up to the mistake and correcting it
would draw too much attention to the mistake?

Personally, my respect lies with any entity that can own up to and correct its
mistakes before it is forced to do so.

------
bhouston
Easy solution, just switch to natural biodegradable abrasives like crushed
walnut shells. These are already used a lot in the cosmetics industry.

~~~
idbehold
That sounds slightly more expensive than plastic.

~~~
ceejayoz
Why would walnut shells be expensive?

~~~
azinman2
Plastic is way cheaper than walnuts. Look at the price per pound of raw
materials, not to mention only specific places in the world can grow walnuts
versus plastic which can be produced anywhere.

------
xixi77
Just curious -- what is the main problem with these (as opposed to say sand
and other natural objects of similar size) -- do they float in water instead
of settling down, or look like food, or something else?

~~~
sageabilly
They're super small and don't get caught up in wastewater treatment filters so
then they enter into local watersheds. There, they get ingested by the
critters at the bottom of the foodchain and enter into the foodchain that way.

~~~
smsm42
So what is the difference with, say, very fine sand/dust? Density? E.g. do the
same critters ingest fine sand - and if so, why plastic is more harmful? Also,
if these microbeads are chemically inert, what is the harm from them entering
the foodchain - as opposed, again, to e.g. dust?

~~~
DanBC
Sand and dust tends to settle, where as these microbeads form a "soup".

The beads absorb some chemicals, and so they're not inert by the time they're
eaten.

------
brokentone
There are a number of natural "beads" regularly used in alternative products.
Likely a higher pricepoint, but clearly a better idea. e.g.
[http://www.kiehls.com/mens-oil-eliminator-deep-cleansing-
exf...](http://www.kiehls.com/mens-oil-eliminator-deep-cleansing-exfoliating-
face-wash/515.html)

------
castratikron
Microbeads were banned in Minnesota several months ago.

[http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/05/05/microbeads](http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/05/05/microbeads)

------
buckbova
What about pumice soaps, don't these particles float as well? Probably too
abrasive to have widespread use outside of some hand soaps.

~~~
coryrc
They aren't a polymer. Nature is well-adapted to having small bits of rock in
the watershed.

~~~
logfromblammo
Technically speaking, I think pumice is a type of glass, and silicates are
actually inorganic polymers (...-Si-O-Si-O-Si-O-...).

The problem is that microbeads are _new_ to the ecosystem, and no species
larger than a bacterium has yet adapted to suddenly having a lot of
anthropogenic plastic particulates around.

------
azinman2
FINALLY

How people aren't able to be put in jail for this kind of idiotic stuff in the
first place I'll never understand. Our priorities in our legal system don't
really accommodate the destruction that can be caused by normal everyday
products at scale.

------
wiradikusuma
Holy batman, I didnt know (certain type of) microbeads are made of plastic.
_Everybody_ knows plastic in general is non-biodegradable etc etc, and they're
making it in small particles? Who in their right mind?

What I don't understand is, they get the profit, everyone else clean their
shit. And they can get away with this? _Sigh_

------
jackcosgrove
Not only are these environmentally harmful, but they get stuck in your ear
after you shower with them and then your doctor has to refer you to an ENT
costing time and money to vacuum them out. Not to mention the psychological
stress when your doctor tells you you have a blue growth in your ear and they
don't know what it is. Or so I've heard this sort of thing can happen...

------
sosuke
Why 2017? That seems very far off.

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aaron695
Anyone who cares about science rather than religion want to link about issues
with microbeads here?

Can't say I've ever seen any, other than the normal anti-science, stuff is
'scary' point.

That alone annoys me with this conversation, how about starting with a real
reason this is bad rather than we can track it.

------
donatj
What's wrong with pumice soap that we need plastic?

------
adrusi
Great, but now what do I do when my hands are covered in tree sap and normal
soap isn't working? I guess we'll just have to settle for a more
environmentally friendly alternative like acetone.

~~~
adiabatty
Do microbeads show up in products like Gojo Fast Orange and other degreasers —
that is, things a mechanic would use to clean gunk off his hands?

~~~
Avshalom
Products like Gojo, traditionaly at least, used crushed pumice or sometimes
walnut shells.

~~~
mirimir
Apricot pits are my favorite.

