Microbeads in ‘Rinse-off’ Personal Care Products to be Banned? (E)
Draft regulations banning the use of microbeads * as an ingredient in the manufacture of rinse-off personal care products in England and also banning the sale of any rinse-off products containing microbeads, have been published by the Dept for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.
Defra has invited comments on ‘The Environmental Protection (Microbeads) (England) Regulations 2017: Draft’. Subject to any changes resulting from these, the ban on manufacture will be introduced from 1 January 2018 and the prohibition of sales from 30 June 2018.
A civil sanctions regime will be introduced to make variable monetary penalties, compliance notices, stop notices and enforcement notices available to regulators.
(Microbeads are small particles of plastic commonly used in personal care products such as face scrubs and toothpastes. They are also used in industrial blasting processes where abrasive materials are propelled under high pressure to remove surface materials such as paint. Too small to be filtered out in sewage treatment systems, a proportion of them are washed out into the marine environment.)
* ‘Banning the Use of Plastic Microbeads in Cosmetics (E)’ (CPA News, 7 August 2017).
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