We might think that what is good for us is good for the environment. Well, not in the case of facial scrubs… Although it leaves your skin with a nice and beautiful glow, scrubbing has a detrimental impact on the world. To be more specific: on the oceans.

As you might (not) know there is a plastic soup drifting in the Pacific Ocean, not too far from Hawaii, the island of my dreams. The ocean currents took it there, but we, all of us, made the plastic and distributed it in our environment, 4,7 million tons of plastic every year.

The soup is twice as big as the United States. Take a few seconds to imagine how big that is. Imagine a drifting mass of bottles, bags and plastic stuff. It is so huge, that it would take you 80 days or more if you would swim through it. Imagine the innocent whales and fishes and dolphins, trying to make sense of our mess. Think of the seabirds picking pieces of plastic, thinking it’s dinner, dying with their stomach full of our rubbish.

Depressing, isn’t it? Well, take some Prozac, it gets worse. The plastic soup didn’t drift completely to the Pacific. In fact the soup is everywhere, even in the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Only in our part of the world, it is invisible because it is made of very tiny parts of plastic that don’t get swept away by the ocean current.
These tiny parts will stay there for hundreds or thousands of years, because until now, there is no way the natural sea environment can degrade plastic. This plastic is clouding the life of little fish that get ingested by big fish. And eventually it comes back to haunt us as the catch of the day.

What has this to do with my lovely scrub, you will ask? Well, scrubs and some types of toothpaste are loaded with microscopic little plastic parts, so called microplastics. Yes, I am talking about the tiny little grains that help to rub and exfoliate the dead cells of your skin.
Every time you flush your scrub through the sink, you are contributing to the enormous plastic broth (in the case of microscopic plastics broth is the better word) without knowing.
And the fucked up part is, that this is legal. No government in the world forbids the use of microplastics (although they should!). Even more fucked up is that the cosmetic industry has perfectly healthy safe alternatives. Sugar, sand, grinded apricot pits and jojoba beads for example are alternatives that safely degrade or disperse in the natural environment.

So, what can YOU do about the plastic soup, apart from avoiding plastics? Never ever buy any scrubs or toothpaste, without knowing what the little particles are made of. And in case of doubt ask Amazingy for safe products or check this list:

www.noordzee.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Lijst-producten-MET-plastic-augustus.pdf

PS: Sign the petition to ban cosmetics with plastic micro beads inside!
Klicking on the banner will direct you to the corresponding petition on avaaz.org, a platform for community petitions.

Photo credit: cesarharada.com, Greenpeace