Greenpeace claims personal care companies fail to remove microplastics from products

Greenpeace East Asia has published a report claiming that most of the personal care companies across the world are failing to eliminate microplastics from their products.

Greenpeace has ranked 30 largest personal care companies that have failed to keep up with the voluntary corporate commitments to end use of microbeads that pollute rivers and oceans.

Microbeads are tiny plastic particles that are present in everyday cosmetic products as an exfoliating agent, or to add colour and texture.

A single tube of face wash can comprise up to 360,000 of these tiny microplastics spheres. Approximately eight million tonnes of microplastics enter and pollute the ocean every year.

Microbeads are very small, so cannot be filtered by most water treatment systems and can end up in rivers, oceans, as well as the food chain that not only causes harm to marine life but can also pollute the entire ecosystem.

According to social campaigners, the governments worldwide must legislate to ban microbeads in consumer products.

Greenpeace East Asia Oceans campaigner Taehyun Park said: “There’s no single bad player, the industry as a whole is failing to regulate the use of microplastics everyday products.

“Companies claim to have microbeads under control but this is simply not true. As a result of weak corporate commitments, trillions of microbeads from personal care products enter our oceans every day.”

According to the Greenpeace ranking, five of biggest personal care companies of the world, Procter & Gamble, L’Oreal, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive and Estee Lauder respectively, have failed to regulate the use of microplastics in their care products.

US companies Revlon, Amway and Estee Lauder were rated by the environmental organisation as the 'worst performers' in carrying out their responsibility towards their consumers as well as the environment.

On the other hand, four companies Beiersdorf (Germany), Colgate-Palmolive (USA), L Brands (USA) and Henkel (Germany) have to some extent been able to cut microbeads in their products. 

The US ban on the use of microbeads in personal care products comes into effect from next year.

---

Image: Microbeads are tiny plastic particles present in cosmetic products as an exfoliating agent, or to add colour and texture. Photo: courtesy of Fred Dott / Greenpeace.