http://spiritualityhealth.com/articles/dangers-microbeads
2014 January-February
The Dangers of Microbeads
By: Stuart Coleman
Researchers Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins were taking water samples
from Lakes Erie, Huron, and Superior in 2012 when they noticed something
puzzling—millions of plastic beads, each one smaller than a grain of sand.
The California couple had spent years researching the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch and studying plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. They
were finding much of the same debris in the Great Lakes—bottles, bags,
straws, caps, and countless other single-use plastics—but they were
stymied by the vast amount of mysterious plastic beads in every trawl.
After some research, Eriksen says, they realized the spherical particles
were “the same size, shape, texture, and color of the microbeads you
find in consumer beauty products”—facial scrubs, cleansers, and other
common products that leave our skin clean but also send millions of
plastic particles down the drain.