United States: Microplastics are tiny plastic particles commonly found in leave-on cosmetics like sunscreens and lip balms. While most regulations which mainly focuses on the rinse-off products, these leave-on items are often overlooked, even though they can really significantly contribute to the environmental pollution and potential health risks.
When we use these products, microplastics can end up in our water and soil, harming the environment. It’s important to be aware of these issues so we can make better choices about the cosmetics we use.
In a new critical review, scientists of the University of Birmingham note that such research and authorities disregard microplastics in leave-in cosmetic and individual care products.
The paper was published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials and noted that leave-on products including sunscreens, moisturisers, hand sanitizers, deodorants or lipsticks that are applied and left on skin surface have not been trialled extensively and might contain some chemical with certain connotations to the environment and human health.
As reported by Scitechdaily, Dr Anna Kukkola from the University of Birmingham said: In the present study, we have done a complete meta-analysis of the literature, available to the authors, regarding microplastic content in cosmetics and other products used in personal care.
Interestingly, the emerged themes indicate a huge research gap that is currently not well addressed due to a complete focus on rinse off products by researchers and global regulatory bodies.
“The impact by leave-on cosmetics, to microplastic pollution is one of the most important areas that have not been well investigated on environmental pollution. These particles will ultimately be discharged to wastewater treatment plants or to landfills; from there, they can migrate to aquatic systems.
Moreover, the probable high human skin exposure to microplastics via such products indicates a research gap in studying microplastic effects where no studies of microplastic exposure were identified in this review.
The research observed that among the 2,381 products analyzed, there were only two leave-on products. Some of the possible reasons for this gap are Issues of sample preparation to isolate microplastics form complicated oil-based formulations. Other difficulties: absence of public demand due to various bans of microplastics in rinse-off products, hence providing an illusion that this area is well addressed by regulatory authorities.
In the paper, the author argues that the term “microbead,” which can only refer to “rinse-off” products, has lately been used generally in all the literature concerning the testing of cosmetics and personal care products and that this misuse has led to deficiencies in the regulatory characteristics of microplastics around the world.