You Won’t Be Seeing These Suprisingly Dangerous Microbeads in Your Products

Obama is phasing out the little pollutants after signing the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 on Monday.

Those little beads that give you that freshly-scrubbed feeling will soon be no more than a memory.

President Barack Obama signed the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, which will phase out microbeads in consumer products over the next few years.

Sure they feel great on the skin, but their effect on the environment is not as refreshing. The little plastic beads easily travel back into the water and absorb toxic chemicals before being eaten by marine wildlife. The same wildlife that will later end up on your dinner plate covered in lemon juice and joined by a side of asparagus.

This problem has been debated across the country. For example, researchers estimate that 19 tons of microbeads washed down the drains of New York each year. That is a lot of plastic.

Some companies have already taken the beads out of their products, but the rest must begin to comply after July 1, 2017. This will be followed by product-specific manufacturing and sales bans in 2018 and 2019.