National ban on microbeads on the table

Microbeads found in store bought facial cleansers are showing up in Canadian lakes and rivers. [© Julien Gignac]

 

Aquatic ecologist and McGill associate professor Anthony Ricciardi recently published a study on microplastic pollution in St. Lawrence River sediment in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.

He says the proposed legislation may lead to a domino effect like in the U.S., where New Jersey and Illinois have banned microbeads.

Ricciardi adds that the fact that people can go to their medicine cabinet and pull out a cosmetic with polyethylene — the most common kind of plastic — listed in the ingredients can hit close to home, but microplastics are also entering waterways beyond household sources. At the same time, he says microbeads are the easiest substance to control since there’s no reason to have microbeads in household products.

The St. Lawrence pollution study is one of the first to examine the extent of microbead pollution in freshwater sediment from the bottom of lakes and rivers. Previous studies in this area have focused on microbeads found in surface waters.

Ricciardi says he was originally looking for an invasive clam species in 2013. He collected sediment samples from the St. Lawrence and brought it back to the lab to examine the debris through a microscope.

“We noticed while we were going through the samples that there was something unexpected in the sediment,” he says. “We were finding spherical beads about one millimetre in diametre, some of them bigger than that, some of them smaller than that, and clearly synthetic. You could shatter them if you pressed too hard on them and some of them were colourful.”

Ricciardi and his team had a suspicion about what these tiny things were and sent them to a McGill chemistry lab to confirm. The lab determined that they were polyethylene beads with the same chemical composition as microbeads commonly found in cosmetics.

“We then conducted a sampling survey and gathered data from multiple spaces across a 300 kilometre stretch of the river and found microbeads at nearly every space in nearly every sample, and sometimes in places in great abundance,” he says. “It was a surprise because they weren’t previously reported in freshwater sediment. It was assumed that these floating things would be flushed in the river and wash out to the ocean.”

Megan Leslie, the NDP environment critic and Member of Parliament for Halifax said the opposition party introduced a motion that would require the government to take immediate steps towards banning microbeads under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA).

“Under CEPA, there’s a list of toxic substances, and the first step towards banning the product is to get it listed as a toxic substance,” says Leslie.

[Image courtesy of McGill University]

Leslie says microbeads are insidious when it comes to its environmental impact. “We’re seeing fish that have ingested these microbeads and their stomachs are filled with plastic and they end up starving to death because they’re not hungry,” she says.

“We also need to look at what the health implications will be. As far as I know there aren’t enough studies about the impacts on human health but we do know that these microbeads have acted like sponges and absorbed toxins from the environment like PCBs or DDTs. We really need to figure out what the health impacts are.”

Leslie adds that because the move to ban microbeads would get support from environment groups and industry groups, the motion was a “no-brainer.”

President of the Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association Darren Prank says it’s the first time he’s seen all the significant players on this issue come together on a broad general agreement.

According to Praznik, although microbeads had wide consumer acceptance when they were first introduced, once they started appearing in bodies of water, many companies wanted to reassess their continued usage in products.

Both Leslie and Praznik say there needs to be an even playing field for all implicated parties in order to ensure effective regulation.

Leslie says there may still be a problem down the road. In the Question Period following the unanimous vote on the motion, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment said they were putting the item on an agenda for meetings with provincial counterparts in the summer. She says this is not what was voted on.

“I’m quite concerned the government isn’t going to live up to their vote, so we’re still putting the pressure on them to actually do what they said they would do with this vote,” Leslie says.