Microplastics
Use of microbeads in cosmetic products
Notably, cosmetic companies in the country are trying all their best to maximize their profits at the cost of using cheap materials as they are making their products. These companies make their cosmetic products containing beads that are small in their size that bare eyes cannot recognize their presence in the products. Microbeads are commonly used, which are the tiny plastic orbs that are added in cosmetics such as deodorants, shower soaps, lotions, and make up for their exfoliating effects on the skins of the users.
Cosmetic companies prefer these microplastics due to their uniformity in size and shape, which make them more exfoliating than the alternatives which are natural such as almonds. Additionally, these microbeads are cheap, thus reducing the cost of production to the industry, and also they help increase the shelf life of these products compared to the naturally made alternatives. Some companies have gone higher to some extent of using colored microbeads in their products to make them more appealing in the eyes of their customers. Furthermore, these microplastics that are used in cosmetics are mainly made of polythene, which is harmful to the marine products when it is used in the bathrooms and also in the swimming pools after their users go to the bath.
Adverse effects of use microbeads in cosmetic products to human beings
Markedly, due to the tiny nature of these microbeads, they cannot be visible, and therefore as people are taking their baths, they scrub off these products and drain them with the bathroom water. As they drain, plants are also affected along the way, and they end up not being able to filter them to prevent from flowing into bigger water bodies. This is a clear indication that they are disposed to the environment in the form of water. On the other hand, these microplastics are non-biodegradable, and therefore they tend to move with the water to wherever its destination is its sea or oceans.
Notably, all these microplastics move to the water bodies where their effect is magnificent due to their high concentration as they attract waterborne bacteria and other toxins that stick to surfaces that appear shiny. When these microplastics are in the ocean, they look like food to the water animals such as fish, whereby they end up eating them, and as a result, they may end up blocking the digestive as well as the breathing track of these sea animals.Later human beings, as they look for food, go fishing where they fish the same animals that had eaten these microplastics, thus bringing the whole contamination to humans through the food chain as contaminated seafood.
When humans consume the kinds of seafood, they end up getting infections that had been attracted by the microplastics, and humans ingest them. Due to their non-biodegradable nature, these plastics end up bringing so many health effects to the bodies of humans without their knowledge that they are the genesis of the problem from the use of these microplastic cosmetic products.