It’s not what microplasitcs are! Does anyone knows what micro is at this point?
Microbeads are manufactured solid plastic particles of less than one millimeter in their largest dimension.[1] They are most frequently made of polyethylene but can be of other petrochemical plastics such as polypropylene and polystyrene. They are used in exfoliating personal care products, toothpastes, and in biomedical and health-science research.[2]
To add to this, the definition of microplastic is less than 5mm. So yes, 1mm microbeads are microplastics.
Millibeads
If these aren’t microplastics, what are?
“Micro” just means “small” in this case and doesn’t mean “microscopic” or have anything to do with “micrometer”.
The definition of “microplastic” according to NOAA: “Microplastics are small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long”.
The problem with that, is that if you include everything “small” in the definition, the word loses all it’s meaning, feeble as it is already.
The word microplastic was introduced to describe not just any small piece of trash, but specifically that very small, invisible, pieces of plastics that are, as it turned out, everywhere, in the air, in the water, in our food, in our blood, even in space. If you add just small pieces of rubbish to it, we remove all the sense from the word, and will need another one.
1x10^-6 m.
Wtf is this meme border?
Oh I’d somehow forgotten this era
That shit was in everything non solid for like 2 years
I still use a few profucts with a similar concept, though the beads are of cellulose or similar fiber as opposed to plastic. I’m not aware if they’re problematic or not, so I thought I’d comment in the hope that perhaps someone who feels strongly about these things might educate me if they are indeed bad for you or the environment or something.
Reasons we need more oversight and regulations for these corporate snake oil salesmen. This shit should be a crime against humanity and every damn company that put that shit into their products should be abolished.
we need more oversight and regulations
I think that ship has sailed
Reguwhat now?
Just mineral or ground rocks work just as well. I hate my wife’s soft face scrub, i need that shit that feels like I’m scrubbing my face with sandpaper, to exfoliate well. They sell one that has ground up lava rock, i love that shit, and it makes me wonder why anyone ever thought plastic bits was a good idea
They probably had some extra plastic to offload lol.
“What do we do with all these old bottles sir?”
I feel like it’s just capitalism doing a capitalism. People are self-conscious about their skin, so you can sell them all kinds of crap.
Even a basic washcloth does a decent job with exfoliating, if you use it regularly. Rub your face dry with a scruffy towel, if you need more than that.But of course, there’s hardly any money to be made with reasonably priced products, so you won’t see TV ads for them.
But lava rock grinds are not part of the industrial waste stream repurposed for profit. This is innovation!
My ex would use St. Ives “Apricot Exfoliant” or something, which has powdered apricot pits and walnut shells. Those are waste products that I wouldn’t expect to cause problems but who knows.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they cause issues in pipes. I work in building maintenance and when sand collects in a horizontal drain it causes issues. Kitty litter is the worst because it turns to cement inside the pipes. But over time the beauty products add up im sure
Well, rocks in toothpaste would be very bad because they’d be harder than your teeth.
Harder? No. Enamel is harder than steel. It is more brittle though so don’t go chewing rocks.
Tooth enamel is ~5 on mohs scale. Quartz, the most common kinda rock (afaik), is ~7. You’re correct that enamel is harder than steel though, since it’s ~4? Disclaimer: all of these numbers are from a quick google search.
Fun fact, this is why we know ancient people used to make bread - the way they separated wheat from the chuff included dropping it on the ground, which led to sand being in the bread and consequently destroying their teeth over a lifetime of eating it.
Tiny bits of rock and shells is how ancient people kept their teeth clean, that and not consuming sugar every minute
Please, do name and shame.
Inalways thought that those were like the crunchy exterior of chewing gum, but as little glitter pellet things
Chewing gum is plastic
https://www.vice.com/en/article/rethink-chewing-gum-habit-essentially-plastic/
The shell as well? Thought it was some kind of carbohydrate
yummy
Haha, my poorly googled current events assignment is highly relevant after all these years! Take that you dork try hards!
Yeah, it’s sooooo funny… it’s heeeeeeel-larious! I don’t know about you, but I for one can’t stop laughing!
The way language is used or abused creates patterns in the mind.
I strongly suspect that this way of using language is not healthy at all, for an individual nor for a community.Funny has apparently been used to describe something suspicious for more than 200 years. So say it with a wild west accent.
