Waterways in the United States and Canada are one step closer to being microbead-free, thanks to recent regulations passed in Canada. On November 4, the Canadian government ruled a ban on the sale of microbeads in toiletries starting July 1, 2018. The microbead ban will extend to natural health products and nonprescription drugs sold in Canada in July 2019.
Microbeads are tiny plastics often used as abrasives in facial scrubs, toothpastes and other toiletries. They can easily find their way into waterways since their small size — at 5 millimeters or less — makes it difficult to filter at sewage-treatment plants.
Canada follows in the footsteps of the United States, which issued a ban on microbeads last December and will go into partial effect in July 2017. The Canadian government said that microbeads had been reported found in coastal British Columbia, the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River and in coastal Atlantic Canada.
