Good News: TESCO Goes Microbead-Free by End of 2016

Leading UK supermarket TESCO has announced to pull out all its products containing microbeads by the end of 2016.

Earlier in September, the UK government has announced that all products containing the plastic beads will be gone by the end of 2017. TESCO, being criticized by consumers for taking a stand on the bead ban, had declared that even its own-brand beauty and cleaning products will be taken off the market by the end of this year.

Before TESCO, major players in the market such as Lush, Dove, Waitrose, Sainsbury's, and Asda have completely removed products containing these plastic beads.

In a report published in thedebrief.co.uk, Tesco's group quality director Tim Smith said during a Greenpeace event that people can always go back to buying cleansing products without microbeads, as they did 10 years ago. 

In December 2015, U.S. President Barrack Obama signed the bipartisan bill, #BanTheBead Now Law, which prohibits the distribution and production of products with microbeads. The Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 aims to protect the country's waterways and will take effect in July 2017.

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton explained, "Microbeads may be tiny plastic, but they are wreaking big-time havoc in our waters. We came together, Republicans and Democrats, and got the job done."

A study published in the Environmental Science & Technology revealed that more than 8 trillion microbeads were entering the country's aquatic habitats daily. Microbeads are bits of plastic mixed in personal care products such as toothpaste, facial wash, body scrubs, and exfoliants.These plastic beads do not dissolve and can slip through water treatment systems. As such, these microbeads can easily end up in natural bodies of water and may affect marine life since it could be mistaken for food.

These efforts of the U.S. and the UK governments are all part of the global Beat the Bead campaign which aims to remove all microbead products worldwide by 2020.