Sometimes the plastic doesn't move through, causing animals to become stuffed with plastic. (http://pacificvoyagers.org/midway-atoll-the-plastic-plight-o...)

Good that manfs were quick to say that they'll remove micro-plastics from their products.

Wow, how kind of them. How about we stop politely asking our Manufacturer Overlords to stop their destructive activity in 4 years and instead get legislators do their job and ban their use immediately?

A local or state politician in the Great Lakes area should have no interest in protecting a manufacturer of these products who is likely in another state or country. Their interest is entirely in favor of protecting the Lakes.

And who are these people scrubbing their faces with microscopic plastic beads? What's wrong with good old fashioned coarse salt or sugar? Why do we need more plastic? Can this plastic be inhaled accidentally? Can it leach into the raw scrubbed skin? Who asks these questions?

Note the following from the article:

  we took science ... to the companies and, without 
  having to spend time and money involved in a policy 
  solution, the companies themselves chose to solve it on 
  their own.

Which points to another possibility: They know how long it would actually take to get those kinds of laws enacted and enforced, and they'll only go as fast as that.

And don't forget, two years is enough time to forget about this. So in two years, maybe they'll simply do nothing at all.

Unless they're adding something to the plastic, or coating it in something, they could absolutely just ship it back as smaller than usual nurdles, or make use of it for something else in their manufacturing process, like making bottles or caps.

In any case, do you really think they have a two year supply of this stuff? That'd be crazy.

Toothpaste and facewash?

I find it very plausible that they have a two-year supply of particular products, that can easily happen if demand does not meet expectations, or if they planned limited campaigns of particular products.

This isn't the 1920s. Most major companies run on much leaner inventory, and it's not uncommon to turn over your entire warehouse several times a month.

Building a body of research evidence, drafting legislation, putting it out for review, getting it passed into law, etc. all these things take time. It could then get challenged legally which would obviously take more time. Plus you then have to give companies time to figure out what's in their pipeline and remove it.

The legislative route could easily take years longer than companies willingly switching away based upon preliminary evidence. It took a decade for DDT to be banned and that was with a lot more evidence against it.

Sadly, this solution is probably far quicker than an adversarial legislative one. It would be very difficult to get that legislation passed without overwhelming evidence of harm to combat the organization's lobbying dollars.

>A local or state politician in the Great Lakes area should have no interest in protecting a manufacturer of these products who is likely in another state or country.

Can they mail a check? If so, he/she has plenty of interest in protecting the manufacturer. The way it works every day, sadly.

We are now born into a transgenerational consumer culture. Most of us never have an independent thought. QED.

You can put a trademark on anything you want, it's not a patent on the substance. Evian is trademark on water, for example.

It's time to make the sugar barons eat dirt (but free of tiny plastic beads — that would be cruel and unusual).

> Cost is not a significant factor.

Yes, for multi-nationals, it is. Increase that 5c for plastic to 6c for sugar, and that’s potentially a million or two off the bottom line for the company. That's how large companies work.

Also, if it's more expensive to use plastics for these products, why do you suppose they didn't use "NaturalSucroseSuperBeads TM" from the start? Perhaps they didn't think of it? Unlikely. If it really wasn't for cost reasons, then its likely for ease of production, product stability, or other such reasons.

> This is a wider beauty industry issue and we, like many other global beauty brands, have been forced to use synthetic scrub particles for face products in the last few years as safety restrictions in some markets around the world have become more stringent. These safety restrictions require us to ensure that all scrub particles used on the face are consistently rounded in shape, which is difficult to achieve with natural particles. In order to provide a global product formulation that is stable and safe for use we have, unfortunately, had to resort to synthetic materials such as polyethylene.

http://5gyres.org/posts/2013/04/26/get_plastic_off_my_face_a...

I agree that there may be other reasons to choose plastic over sugar - companies don't generally do things that are bad for them - I was only disputing the disparity in the raw cost of the ingredients. Personally I've noticed that sugar based scrubs don't hold up as well, they tend to either dry out in the jar or get too wet. Fussy consumers who want life to look like a TV commercial are part of the problem here.

Here's an example product:

http://www.origins.com/product/3829/10219/Bath-Body/Star-Col...

Couple that with the added benefit of being water soluble, cleanup after using the product is especially easy. Scrub and rinse (and gently scrub) until you can't feel the product. It's self-documenting. :-)

http://www.treehugger.com/organic-beauty/8-homemade-salt-and...

The entire idea of making a product composed partly of plastic that's thrown into the sewer system is patently insane.

They've been over-fished, the industries of the surrounding area polluted the living hell out of them up until the 1970's, they've been invade by Zebra mussels and the water levels are at record lows. Places I swam as a kid don't even exist any more - the water has moved out a hundred yards from the old shore.

Fisheries adapted. Pollution has seen a massive decline. The zebra mussel...well that's nature, and as much as can be done about it has been done, but you can't really stop nature. As to water levels --

http://www.waterlevels.gc.ca/C&A/NetworkMeans2013.pdf

-- it's at a low ebb right now, but isn't at record lows at all. If you have memories of much higher levels, those were likely historic highs.

Plenty is being done for the Great Lakes. More can be done, but pointing back at the 70s doesn't demonstrate that things aren't being done today.

How exactly, and what from, do they need to be protected?

Also: why the ad hominem? There was nothing idiotic about my simple question.

Stop downvoting and answer the question.

>over-fished, ... polluted the living hell out of them

Zebra mussels you might be able to claim damage the lake, but the complaints against them are certainly primarily based on nuisance, so I'll exclude them.

  Since zebra mussels became established in Lake Erie, 
  water clarity has increased from 6 inches to 30 feet 
  in some areas. … One drastic impact of the zebra mussel
  invasion is the near extinction of native American 
  unionid clams in Lake St. Clair and in the western 
  basin of Lake Erie.

The way you asked it was like "What problems?" when it's obvious that a water-system that vast needs controls or it'll be abused and ruined for everyone.

Unfortunately there's no mention if "phasing out" means production stops or if consumer sales stop. If the production line at PG is running till 2017 they could have tons of this stuff stockpiled for later sale that could take months or years.

Source: http://www.stives.com/Facial-Products/Fresh-Skin/Invigoratin...

Full Ingredients: http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/st.-ives-fresh-skin-invigor... Water , Juglans Regia (Walnut) Shell Powder , Glyceryl Stearate , Glycerin , Sodium Laureth Sulfate , Zea Mays (Corn) Kernel Meal , Cocamidopropyl Betaine , Cetearyl Alcohol , Cetyl Alcohol , PEG 100 Stearate , Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot) Fruit Extract , Cetyl Acetate , Polysorbate 60 , Ceteareth 20 , Acetylated Lanolin Alcohol , Carbomer , PPG 2 Methyl Ether , Phenethyl Alcohol , Triethanolamine , Methylisothiazolinone , Fragrance , Titanium Dioxide

http://www.reddit.com/r/SkincareAddiction/comments/19oiyy/th...

Ironically the plastic was polypropylene there too.

Talk to an Australian about cane toads, for example. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_toads_in_Australia).

...or maybe you could just sweep it up.

I wonder how much pollution these are causing in smaller lakes and rivers?

This is like the preview version of a grey goo crisis except with training wheels, where the particles are rendered inert and dead by the time they become pollutants, and don't actually self-replicate in the wild.

But the real thing will probably start with some stupid little innocuous product like this, and then explode and catch everyone by surprise in a very short amount of time, instead of this slow-burning sleeper pollution that takes decades to accumulate. (two full decades? was this stuff around in 1993?)

It's enough to drive me to buy as many biodegradable / compostable products as possible. Now if only they weren't so crazy expensive...

I suppose it all comes down to shelf life. Decentralise or die.

Therefore, it matches a Bayesian pattern of interest within the HN community.

Happy?