“The unprecedented plastic waste tide plaguing our oceans and shores, can become as limited as our chosen relationship with plastics, which involves a dramatic behavioral change on our part…”
Captions and Photo: © SAF — Coastal Care
Excerpts;
President Barack Obama last week signed the law, which bans personal-care products from containing microbeads and aims to help remove plastic pollution from lakes, rivers and the oceans.
The plastics industry says it supports the new law that phases out plastic microbeads starting in 2017.
The law defines microbeads as “any solid plastic particle that is less than 5 millimeters in size…”
Obama signs ban on microbes pollution, MLive
The bipartisan “Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015,” (H.R. 1321), passed by the U.S. House on Dec. 7, “prohibits the manufacture and introduction into interstate commerce of rinse-off cosmetics containing intentionally-added plastic microbeads.”
Microbead-Free Waters Act a common-sense law, Statesman Journal
The Ocean Is Contaminated by Trillions More Pieces of Plastic Than Thought, IOP Science (12-08-2015)
This new study suggests there are 15 to 51 trillion micro plastic particles (those less than 200 millimeters in size) in the world’s oceans, weighing between 93 and 236,000 metric tons. This is about seven times more than scientists had previously estimated…
Even the tiniest plastics found in the sea with new technology, Science Daily (12-03-2015)
Plastic Contaminates Ocean Sourced Table Salt, Scientific American (10-30-2015)
When researchers analyzed fifteen brands of common table salt bought at supermarkets across China, they found among the grains of seasoning micro-sized particles of plastic. The highest level of plastic contamination was found in salt sourced from the ocean…
Biodegradable Plastics Are Not the Answer to Reducing Marine Litter, UN News Center (11-23-2015)
