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>A number of personal care product manufacturers have promised to cut microbeads from their products in the coming years, but dates vary. Unilever is aiming for

>A number of personal care product manufacturers have promised to cut microbeads from their products in the coming years, but dates vary. Unilever is aiming for 2015, Colgate-Palmolive in 2014, Procter & Gamble vowed to be free by 2017, while Johnson & Johnson and L'Oréal haven't given a date. Do we need a law for this? So far, all action has been spurred by consumer and environmental groups. Sure, it may not happen at the same pace as if CA bans it and puts another law on their books, but if it happens soon, shouldn't we avoid lawmaking?

astrodust 12y ago
Something this ridiculously damaging needs to be banned outright. If I were a corporation making products of this sort I'd rather tell my shareholders "Sorry, environmental regulations prevent us from making that product" rather than "We decided to abandon a profitable product line because scientists told us to." This is the same principle behind architecture review boards for cities. If the architect has peers to support their efforts, they're more likely to succeed than to be forced to cave into purely economic concerns. There are some things corporations are very good at, but protecting the long-term interests of people is not one of them.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  The damage is speculative so far. It remains to be seen whether any significant environmental damage has been done. The mere presence of plastic particles is not enough. Marine life has dealt with particles in the water for a billion years.
  - astrodust 12y ago
    Particles, yes, but plastic particles? These didn't even exist a hundred years ago. The damage is being documented, and it's far more obvious with larger contaminants, the most prevalent being plastic nurdles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurdle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurdle) that sometimes escape into the environment.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      The presence is being documented, but presence isn't damage. I'm not an industry apologist. But we can't spend billions on everything, and there are real issues that need addressing.
      - astrodust 12y ago
        This isn't about spending billions. It's about not putting beads in facial scrubs. Surely the industry will survive if they use something like walnuts or pumice instead.
  - cb3 12y ago
    Marine life has dealt with particles in the water for a billion years. Precisely, and that actually potentially works against the organisms' defenses. It's like the Trojan Horse, it looks okay on the outside. The particles being dealt with for a billion years I imagine have varied little in their molecular construction and bio-reactivity. Your idea is that we can introduce tons of new plastic particles into the environment having all the disruptive properties plastics have been shown to have, but it's okay because there are already 'particles' in the environment. Elsewhere you question what studies have been conducted to quantify damage done by these particles. As you may know, the earth is an immensely complex system. Sometimes it is relatively easy to draw a causal line from A to B. Other times the effects of something are no doubt there, but the interworkings of so many factors make it hard to precisely quantify the effects of any one factor.(see Honeybees and Colony Collapse Disorder[1]) So your idea that we should go ahead and saturate the environment with this substance that has been shown in other realms and at other scales to be detrimental, and then if someone happens to take an interest in precisely quantifying damage that it is doing, then we can do something about it, seems wrongheaded. Maybe you're just playing the reflexive contrarian like worklogin, "shouldn't we avoid laws?" This is precisely what laws are for, to protect the common good! And it isn't a stretch to infer damage being done based on what we know about plastic. [1]http://cdn.billmoyers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/67296281_bee_stress_624in-1.gif http://cdn.billmoyers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/6729628...
mikeash 12y ago
Group actions like this can fall apart pretty easily. One company feels some pressure and changes their mind, and then everybody else follows. I think a good case can be made that a major purpose of law should be to codify the unwritten rules that people already follow, to ensure that everyone understands them and to make it easier to resolve disputes. Looking at it from another direction, making a law like this can make it easier for everybody involved even if they're already voluntarily following it. I like to make the analogy to safety regulations in car racing. There's an inherent conflict between safety and speed (if nothing else, safety equipment adds weight) which puts drivers at risk and sets up hard choices for people who have to weigh their desire to win against their desire to die in bed. Regulating a certain level safety equipment settles the question and provides a fair playing field for competition without having to feel like a chump for trying to do the right thing.

astrodust 12y ago

Something this ridiculously damaging needs to be banned outright. If I were a corporation making products of this sort I'd rather tell my shareholders "Sorry, environmental regulations prevent us from making that product" rather than "We decided to abandon a profitable product line because scientists told us to." This is the same principle behind architecture review boards for cities. If the architect has peers to support their efforts, they're more likely to succeed than to be forced to cave into purely economic concerns. There are some things corporations are very good at, but protecting the long-term interests of people is not one of them.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
The damage is speculative so far. It remains to be seen whether any significant environmental damage has been done. The mere presence of plastic particles is not enough. Marine life has dealt with particles in the water for a billion years.
- astrodust 12y ago
  Particles, yes, but plastic particles? These didn't even exist a hundred years ago. The damage is being documented, and it's far more obvious with larger contaminants, the most prevalent being plastic nurdles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurdle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurdle) that sometimes escape into the environment.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    The presence is being documented, but presence isn't damage. I'm not an industry apologist. But we can't spend billions on everything, and there are real issues that need addressing.
    - astrodust 12y ago
      This isn't about spending billions. It's about not putting beads in facial scrubs. Surely the industry will survive if they use something like walnuts or pumice instead.
- cb3 12y ago
  Marine life has dealt with particles in the water for a billion years. Precisely, and that actually potentially works against the organisms' defenses. It's like the Trojan Horse, it looks okay on the outside. The particles being dealt with for a billion years I imagine have varied little in their molecular construction and bio-reactivity. Your idea is that we can introduce tons of new plastic particles into the environment having all the disruptive properties plastics have been shown to have, but it's okay because there are already 'particles' in the environment. Elsewhere you question what studies have been conducted to quantify damage done by these particles. As you may know, the earth is an immensely complex system. Sometimes it is relatively easy to draw a causal line from A to B. Other times the effects of something are no doubt there, but the interworkings of so many factors make it hard to precisely quantify the effects of any one factor.(see Honeybees and Colony Collapse Disorder[1]) So your idea that we should go ahead and saturate the environment with this substance that has been shown in other realms and at other scales to be detrimental, and then if someone happens to take an interest in precisely quantifying damage that it is doing, then we can do something about it, seems wrongheaded. Maybe you're just playing the reflexive contrarian like worklogin, "shouldn't we avoid laws?" This is precisely what laws are for, to protect the common good! And it isn't a stretch to infer damage being done based on what we know about plastic. [1]http://cdn.billmoyers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/67296281_bee_stress_624in-1.gif http://cdn.billmoyers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/6729628...

mikeash 12y ago

Group actions like this can fall apart pretty easily. One company feels some pressure and changes their mind, and then everybody else follows. I think a good case can be made that a major purpose of law should be to codify the unwritten rules that people already follow, to ensure that everyone understands them and to make it easier to resolve disputes. Looking at it from another direction, making a law like this can make it easier for everybody involved even if they're already voluntarily following it. I like to make the analogy to safety regulations in car racing. There's an inherent conflict between safety and speed (if nothing else, safety equipment adds weight) which puts drivers at risk and sets up hard choices for people who have to weigh their desire to win against their desire to die in bed. Regulating a certain level safety equipment settles the question and provides a fair playing field for competition without having to feel like a chump for trying to do the right thing.