Beat the Microbead

Key concepts:

• power of a campaign
• art and activism
• Obama regulates micoplastics in consumer products

We need strategies for campaigns, a Beat the Microbead sets a great example, from which we can learn. They provide the consumer with facts, well-organized and easy to act on.

Artist Bonnie Monteleone captured the scary connection of bright microbeads of plastic in cosmetics with the beauty industry in her aptly titled art piece, “What Goes Around Comes Around.”

Beat the Microbead is a smartly designed strategy to make it simple for all of us to find safe products and ethical companies. Beat the Microbead offers a model for a campaign that could be applied to many problems. Beat the Microbead, sponsored by the United Nations Environment Program, has a clear mission: “Tiny particles of plastic have been added to thousands of personal care cosmetic products sold around the world. These microbead plastics, hardly visible to the naked eye, flow straight from the bathroom drain into the sewer system. Women remember them most from facial scrubs. Wastewater treatment plants are not designed to filter them out.” Microbeads contribute to the Plastic Soup swirling in the world’s oceans.

Under President Obama the US banned selling exfoliating care products with plastic particles, such as toothpastes and soaps. The ban took effect in 2017. Other country bans will reduce the tons of microplastics in cosmetics that enter the oceans each year harming marine ecosystems and penetrating our food chain. This boomerangs back to us.

Tom’s of Maine toothpaste, sold as a healthy alternative at Whole Foods, reflects public perception that Tom’s is “good for you.” But Tom’s is not owned by Tom and is not from Maine. It was purchased in 2006 by Colgate-Palmolive, who kept the branding, as Coca-Cola did when they purchased Odwalla,[4] and Pepsi did when they bought Naked Juice.

The Story of Stuff has tackled this challenge with impressive success.

See the app @ earthDECKS.org
Saving Our Oceans from Plastic: articles by Zann Gill

• Adverse Health Effects of Plastic
• Aquaria – Informal Learning Network
• Beat the Microbead
• Bibliography: Plastic Roads
• Boyan Slat: Floater Technology for Ocean Cleanup
• Complex Systems Problems
• Cradle to Grave: Plastic Supply Chain
• Dame Ellen MacArthur: The Circular Economy
• Sylvia Earle: Learning for a Plastic World
• earthDECKS Limelights: Companies to Watch
• Enshrouded in Plastic
• Flamingos Signal the Future We Face
• Floating Trash: More than 4x as bad as we thought
• Give the World a Helping Hand: 3D Prostheses
• Global Ocean Sensing
• Industry Response to the Plastic Challenge
• Nature’s Innovators: plastic consumers
• Ocean Debris Network
• Ocean Ingenuity
• Oceans – Measuring Planet Health
• Plastic Bank – The Exchange Economy
• Plastic – Climate Change Connection: Israel & UBQ
• PLASTIC: Complex Systems Problem
• Plastic: Drinking Water, Table Salt & Mother’s Milk
• Plastic Footprint ~ Carbon Footprint
• Plastic-Eating Enzyme
• Plastic Gyres and Social Justice
• Plastic Impact Calculator
• Plastic Pollution Coalition: Campaign vs Single Use Plastic
• Plastic & Public Health: Endocrine Disruptors
• PLASTIC: Overview of National Leadership
• Plastic Roads – Global Innovation Ecosystem
• Plastic – The Circular Economy
• The Plasticene
• Plastiki: adventure stories & a big message
• Raising Awareness of Plastic Hazards