UK to ban plastic microbeads in beauty and cleaning products by end of 2017

The UK Government has announced it will ban the sale of cosmetics and cleaning products containing microbeads by the end of next year.

Microbeads are tiny plastic granules used in makeup, facial scrub and other cleaning products.

The plastic products could end up in ocean and damage marine life.

Conservationists have been urging for a ban for some time as the particles have been found in the gut of fishes, reported The Guardian.

Welcoming the ban, Greenpeace urged the government to extend it to other products as well.

Greenpeace oceans campaigner Louise Edge was quoted by The Guardian as saying: “It is a credit to Theresa May’s government that they have listened to concerns from the public, scientists, and MPs and taken a first step towards banning microbeads.

“But marine life does not distinguish between plastic from a face wash and plastic from a washing detergent, so it makes no sense for this ban to be limited to some products and not others, as is currently proposed.”

Beauty products of supermarket chains Asda, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s as well as of FMCG firm Unilever have already dropped the plastic as an ingredient, while Johnson & Johnson and Proctor and Gamble intends to phase out microbeads by next year.